What a drag!

We headed ashore this morning for a walk on the beach and paused to watch the Life Guards do their daily drag of the stinger net area for nasties and then drag the area either side of our dinghy.

Life guards complete their daily net drag of the area on either side of our dinghy. The stinger net swimming area is just to the left of shot.

The stinger net area yielded nothing but small fish but the drag from one side to the other of where our dinghy lay netted 16 box jellyfish of varying sizes.
Yeow!
We had given no thought to these on our bare legs as we anchored the dinghy fore and aft and yet part of our reason to go ashore was to have a swim - within the stinger net enclosure! Go figure.

A scary haul. The metre long tentacles on the bigger box jelly could kill a child and make an adult extremely sick.
Even a detached tentacle retains its sting power for two days!

The life guard's outfit is more like what we should have been wearing in an area of box jellyfish and other stinging creatures of the wet season..

We were hellishly carefully boarding and hauling in the anchors on the way back to the boat however.
It was a good wake-up call to our complacency.
We'll head back into shore this arvo - with stinger suits and reef boots on.