Jellyfish Stings

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I was reading a response to a comment I had made on a discussion that Jim (@porwest, our very own financial guru and voice of conservative America) made regarding his recent vacation. He said the trip was great except for when he got stung by a jellyfish. That reminded me of a time right after I had graduated from the University of Florida about 117 years ago, when my brother and I decided to explore a shipwreck off the coast of Palm Beach in south Florida. The shipwreck was in shallow water about 100 meters offshore, so we were able to explore it with snorkel gear instead of scuba gear. Anyway, after about an hour of exploring the shipwreck, we decided to call it a day and head back to shore, but suddenly found ourselves surrounded by a swarm of jellyfish. As far as the eye could see were millions of jellyfish. I had no idea how we were going to make it back to shore. My brother came up with the idea of taking our fins off our feet and putting them on our hands, and then using our fins to push the jellyfish out of our way in front of us, slowly clearing a path a few feet at a time. It was a good plan, although it was very slow going, since we had to slowly and carefully push the jellyfish out of the way, swim forward a foot or two, then slowly do it over and over again as we made our way to shore. All while treading water. Everything was going great (although excruciatingly slow) until I got a bad leg cramp about halfway there. At that point I thought I was going to either a) drown; b) die from a hundred jellyfish stings; or c) both. Can you imagine how hard it is to tread water when you only have one good leg to use? Yeah, it was horrible. Yet somehow we finally made it back to shore, just as the sun was setting. It took us more than an hour to ease our way back to shore from the shipwreck in what should have been a 10 minute swim. And surprisingly, neither my brother nor I received a single sting from a jellyfish! In fact, in all my years growing up and living on the beach, I never once experienced a jellyfish sting. I can't say the same about Man-O-War, I've stepped on dozens of those throughout the years. Perhaps their sting is just as bad as a jellyfish? Have you ever been stung by a jellyfish? Btw...did you know that a swarm of jellyfish is called a bloom or a smack?