News

Today In “Kyle’s Not Going In The Ocean This Summer”

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jun 23rd, 2015 · 9:20 AM EDT

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A twofer today!

1) What, in the actual fuck?

From central New Jersey’s Harvey Cedars Beach Patrol Facebook page:

We found a Portuguese man o’ war washed up on the beach. When the wind is coming from the northeast, warm water from the Gulf Stream comes to shore. With the warm water, often comes seaweed & critters from down south. Always be aware of your surroundings in the ocean & always swim near a lifeguard.

NBC 10 further reported on the image and made sure to alert the public that yep, the PMOW can kill your human vessel:

Portuguese man o’war have tentacles that grow from 10 to 30 feet long and marine biologists say their potentially deadly sting is far worse than what you’d get from jellyfish normally found at the Jersey Shore.

…

Experts say this likely wasn’t an isolated incident and that it’s highly probable that more of these jellyfish will show up on local beaches in the next week or so.

“You never want to turn your back on the ocean. It’s always constantly changing,” Townsend said.

Never want to turn your back on the ocean. Um, yaaa ya do… safely… from a distance… on the beach.

2) Oh no, no no no no no no no no:

Paul Oyster II (great name for sea life story, by the way*) posted these photos to his Facebook page yesterday.

That’s a hammerhead shark just chilling, dead, on the beach in Fenwick Island, Delaware. What killed it? Oh, probably just another ravenous and potentially crazed hammerhead because, according to Wikipedia, THEY EAT THEIR OWN, DAMMIT: The Great Hammerhead, tending to be larger and more aggressive than most hammerheads, occasionally engage in cannibalism, as they are known to eat other hammerhead sharks, including their own young.

Or maybe the 30-FOOT tentacles on that jellyfish got it. Yep, it was probably the jellyfish. MF-ing jellyfishes, just out there, slaughtering inferior breeds with their invisible, poisonous venom.

I’ll see you on dunes, where we’ll drink beer like a couple of rebels (because you’re not allowed on the dunes, obvs). Let’s live dangerously… but in a way that is at least 100 yards from the coastline at high tide, because there’s a war going on out there and I want no part of it.

*What are the chances Paul has a sister Pearl? Probably pretty good, right?

UPDATE: OH COME ON!

That story here— but they eat plants, not meat… or so they’d like us to think.

H/T to my fellow landlocked friends (@jharkins16), (@patrickjaywalsh), (@waltbates), (@SkaitesSkate), (@billcuth)