So this past weekend I went to the beach for another volleyball tournament. This wasn’t just any beach though; this was New Jersey beach. Point Pleasant to be exact. So the first thing is it just costs way too much money to go to the NJ beach. It was $20 a day to play in the tournament, $20 to join some volleyball AVP cult so you could pay the previous $20 to play each day, $12 a day to just park the car, and $6.50 just to step foot on the beach. As some people on the trip pointed out several times; it’s a public beach! Why do I need to pay to walk on public land?! In any event Steph felt her stay at NJ beach wasn’t going to be complete until she found a needle floating thru the ocean, but instead she found something much better…

Sunday was day two of the tournament. The weather was beautiful by the time we got to the beach. It was cloudy and not hot at all. By the time we were up to play, the clouds had vanished and the sun was beating down on us like a little kid on the drums. The sand was hot enough that we couldn’t stand in one place for two long or we’d start to burn the souls of our feet. By the end of the first match we were completely drenched in our sweat and just covered from head to toe with sand. The only logical solution to our condition was of course to jump in the ocean and just cool down. So we strolled down to the water, weaving in and out of the half million people there at the beach until we were knee deep in the Atlantic. A few feet ahead of me I saw white clouds of what at the time looked like foam on the water. Having spent many a vacation at the beach, I was used to foamy waters. However once I found myself swimming in the so called foam I realized that this white haze was rather hard in nature. It felt like floating pebbles everywhere. At the time I thought, “Huh, floating pebbles. That’s something I’ve never seen before.”

So there I was half bathing in the ocean. I was brushing the sand off of me, cleaning the sand out of my hair and shaking my swimsuit out underwater so that darn sand would stop scratching that area down there. At that time I noticed Steph and I were the only ones “swimming” in this pebbly area (which was quite unavoidable if you wanted to be in water deeper than your waist). Everyone else was back were the waves were breaking or out way far where the lifeguards were signaling them in. Once Steph and I were cooled down and free of sand, we headed back to the shore. Once out of the water I looked down at my arms and saw little clear gel balls about the size of a dime with small black centers all over my arm. I quickly realized we weren’t swimming in floating pebbles, but a baby boom of baby jellies!

Have you ever seen the movie Stand By Me? It’s about 4 young boys who leave home in search for some great adventure. Well there’s a scene where these boy come across a small lagoon on their journey, and the only way to get to the other side is to wade thru it. The lagoon is about chest deep and the boys strip down to their underwear to cross. Then as they begin to step up onto the shore on the other side they look down to discover leeches all over their body! They start flipping out grabbing the leeches and throwing them to the ground sadistically. Then one of the boys stretches his underwear elastic to look down at his “goods.” He reaches his hand down there and when he pulls it out his hand is covered in blood. The boy’s eyes cross and he passes out there on the spot.

This was what was going thru my mind the instant I looked down my shorts and saw the baby jellies everywhere! I turned to Steph and said, “Ahhhh! They’re all down my shorts!” Steph took a gander down her bathing suit top to see baby jellies all over. She started flipping out just like the boys in the movie and made a mad dash for the public showers. I headed off for the nearest hose and rinsed myself down with a sour look on my face. It was after showering that we decided we’d avoid the ocean water for the remainder of the trip and just suffer the effects of the intense heat and burning feet. Ugggg…Baby jellies…