First Body Surfing Lesson - First Jellyfish Sting

Erin has been wanting to give me a body surfing lesson for a while - she thinks that once I have had some real surf time that I'll be hooked and we'll do beach vacations from now on. So, we went for our first lesson in a bay just outside of Lismore. It was beautiful surf with lots of crashing waves, and not too many people.

I got my first ride, and was really getting into it when suddenly my hand (specifically my thumb) felt like it had caught fire. We had heard reports of jellyfish further up the coast, but we missed the sign at the entrance to the beach which indicated that there were jellys in the bay (next time, we'll use the main entrance instead of walking around).

Anyway, I looked down at my hand and there was this really blue inky looking stuff on my thumb. At first, I thought it was a residue from the sting. I didn't want to mess with it too much, because I thought it might cause more of a problem. I went to shore and asked one of the lifeguards what to do about the blue stuff and he said "oh, you still have the stinger in your hand". He reached down and grabbed the blue stuff and pulled out what looked like a huge stinger (I'm sure my brain made it appear larger than it really was).

Final note - it burned like fire. I haven't been stung by a wasp in a very long time, but it was very much like that. After a few minutes on the beach, we decided that we were not afraid of the jellys and went back in for more swimming. To be honest, everything that floated by made me think that it was a jelly, but we swam for a while longer before getting out and heading on to Byron Bay (which is where the lighthouse below is from).