What was supposed to be a fun first day of kayak fishing off the coast of eastern Australia at Southwest Rocks didn’t turn out quite according to plan. And the jellyfish were just the icing on top of the cake. This is episode 2 of “Field Trip: Down Under,” a series featuring the month-long expedition Robert Field took across Australia and New Zealand with the Fish Village crew.
Field started the day feeling under the weather, but they headed out on the water anyways to do some shark fishing. Basically everyone lost at least one big fish and morale was not very high. While out there, Field comments on the thousands of what he calls man o’ war jellyfish that are in the water, floating near the surface. He warns that they have some “gnarly tentacles” and they will mess you up if you touch them.
Portuguese (or Pacific, depending on where they’re found) man o’ wars aren’t technically jellyfish—they’re what’s called siphonophore. We’ll let you Google that yourself. But they look like jellyfish, and they’re not much fun to get stung by.
After Field sees the man o’ wars, the wind starts to pick up and they decide to make the difficult pedal back to shore. It’s only after they arrive on shore that they realize their friend Ivy got separated from the group and they make several attempts at contacting him. It turns out he flipped his kayak while trying to land on the wrong beach and was stranded. Field and Marty set out on a rescue mission to try and reach this secluded beach. Of course, en route they get the truck stuck in the sand multiple times (but, as you’ll see, not just because of the soft sand).
When they finally find Ivy, they learn his paddle broke and his $800 pedal drive got lost in the surf when he flipped. Field offers to go look for the pedal drive. But while doing so, he wades right into the midst of a cloud of man o’ wars. He cries out and tries to get them off him as he hobbles back to the beach. His friends don’t seem overly concerned, and recommend he pee on it. “That’s the best thing you can do,” Ivy says.
You’ll have to watch the video to find out whether he goes through with it, capping off an eventful day.
