My adventures as a new olah: STINGING WATERS

this evening i went with some friends to ashdod's dati beach (separate for women)..the beach was beautiful and quite clean... i had read on the internet last night about מי צורבים (stinging waters)..but i had no idea what that really meant until today. i had heard and understood that the Israeli beaches were full of jelly fish at this time of the year..

so my friends went into the water first and they told me that they had been stung several times by the jelly fish but the pain was not so bad..

so i went in cautiously on the look out for jelly fish...i was doing fine until one of my crocks fell off my foot and i started heading back towards the shore to retrieve it...then i felt it..a stinging sensation in my ankle...

then once i was in the shallower water i realized that my skin felt prickly all over and then i realized the meaning of "stinging waters.." apparently the jellyfish shoot their poison into the water and if there are a lot of them, the ocean is full of their poison.

Gal says

"because there are so many jellyfish the venom is actually in the water so even if you don't get stung, you still feel it."

i had several red pumps on my arms and legs in places where i wasn't directly stung by the jellyfish... a very interesting sensation that i don't care to experience again.