No kidding, I reckon the Falmouth Bay shoreline must have had literally millions of invaders today.
Look at this photo taken at Swanpool Beach, with the tide out this afternoon, by my daughter Lisa.
Never mind the seaweed, just blow up the pic and see all those little purply, pinky things. Count ‘em all just in this little tiny space if you can. And then multiply by Gawd knows how many.
They are the “mauve stingers” . . . presumably the same little blighters that sparked a round of publicity in September, e.g. this extract from a CornwallLive report:--
“Hundreds of thousands of rare purple jellyfish have washed up on a British beach. The 'Mauve Stingers' are only small, but are capable of a powerful sting and glow brightly at night if disturbed. The jellyfish were spotted washed up at Porth Hellick on St Mary's on the Isles Of Scilly. The species are uncommon close to UK shores.”
And BBC News carried some scary pictures of how victims had suffered - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9527gjkz4o
This morning, there were reports of the sea being carpeted with them at Falmouth’s Gyllyngvase and Swanpool Beach, as well as Greeb and, probably, Castle.
At Gylly, where daughter Lisa and I were due to swim tomorrow (not any more, folks), only a few of the regulars ventured in – and came out pretty sharpish.
A neighbour of mine managed to find “a gap” through them and returned unharmed, but her sister was stung several times.
The whole thing is all the more shocking as we’ve normally forgotten all about jellyfish by now until the next summer, and even then the visitors are not normally of such a lethal variety.
Ah well, I guess it’s back to the heated indoor pool touch for a few days at least. Tough life, innit?
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