When I was a kid, my parents used to take the whole family on vacation to a beach where there frequently were stinging jellyfish. The only thing was, they (we) called them “Sea nettles.” There were other creatures in the water that we called Jellyfish, but those didn’t sting. I do recall how much those stings hurt! And the sea nettles ranged in size from as small as a quarter to over twenty feet long!

I can remember the summer when I turned fifteen. That was the summer when I learned to water ski. I had a group of friends that I went water skiing with, and we skied in those sea nettle infested waters. I got stung so much that I eventually became immune to the pain! Once when I climbed into the boat after having water skied as much as I wanted to ski my friends gasped at all of the stripes of stings on my body, but I didn’t feel a thing!

My folks said that they were told that sprinkling Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer on the sting makes it feel better, but I never tried it. By the time they learned about that treatment, I had become immune.

Now that I’m older and not involved in water skiing, I don’t go in the water anymore if the “sea nettles” are out; I don’t want to take the chance that the immunity wore off, and I do remember that the sting IS very painful.