There were a LOT of Portugese Man of War on the beach yesterday. I think there must have been 100 along the shorline.
I also don’t think they were dead – I think they may have been stranded. I guess they would die shortly, but I think they had only just arrived.
I’m actually not sure if die is the right word as they aren’t real jellyfish, they are made up from groups of organisms. But, anyway, I wasn’t going to touch it to see if it still had a sting!
I was sat on the beach and the pretty coloured ‘balloons’ caught my eye – I wondered how they had got in the sea – then I remembered the PMOW, and I took a look and it was them!
This was on the beach in San Cibrao, where there are two beaches either side of the causeway. The not-mermaid beach was the one that must have had 100 or so. On the other side – mermaid side – there were a few, but not very many.
Out of interest, we then went to Marosa, which is the surfing beach and there weren’t any at all. It’s obviously all down the wind and tides.
I know that a lot of the injuries from PMOW is from people touching them thinking they are toys or just pretty objects. When you see them like this you can see why! They must be very intriguing when you see them drifting along on top of the waves.