I have a project that is requiring monthly collection at the beach on South Padre Island. The weather hasn’t been great, or I’ve had other tasks to do, most of February. This meant I almost had to go out and collect this weekend.
I was surprised when I got there, because “blue” is not a colour I normally see a lot of on our beach.
And going closer, I realized...
That this was a veritable invasion of Portuguese men of war.
Despite my best efforts to avoid them, one caught in a retreating wave got its tentacles on my shins. And I can now say with certainty that this is not an experience I recommend. I would call it a stinging, burning sort of sensation. Rather like a localized sunburn.
Fortunately, the water was chilly, so the coolness of the water numbed the sensation. Somewhat.
I also learned that the covers of Rite in the Rain all weather notebooks are almost exactly the same colour as the sand on South Padre Island, which means if, say, a notebook were to fall down to the sand on the beach, it can be rather difficult to see.
Furthermore, while Rite in the Rain products – such as their No. 37 pen – are indeed waterproof, they aren’t sand proof. And I discovered sand can get into all sorts of places that can gum up the works of a pen.
The things one does for data.
Excuse me... datum. “Data” is plural, so we would need to have found more than one animal to have data.
Last pic from here.
1 comment:
Oh my god! That is insane!!! Ok you were right, it's best that I stayed at home this time :)
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