SkimChix - island life

I know its summer and all of us are flocking to the beach. But before we head out to the beach, I got a very useful reminder about seabather's eruption. I got this idea to write such article because just this weekend I headed out to Alcoy White Beach, my hidden paradise for a quick swim and some skimboarding sessions. But unfortunately, the beach wasn't clean and I have noticed that the water on my first dip was itchy. Tough I tried to ignore the persistent itch since I was already enjoying playing with my skimboard. But later I could not take the stinging feel of the water as I fall on my board, so we stopped swimming and headed to a new location.

Unfortunately the following day, I notice red spots all over my body, especially those that was in contact with my clothing. I researched about it to relieve me from the itchiness and discovered that it has a name, a remedy and I call it first aid to avoid such unwanted red pigments on my smooth skin.

They call it seabather's eruption caused by a hypersensitivity reaction to the immature nematocysts of larval-stage thimble jellyfish (Linuche unguiculata), sea anemones (Edwardsiella lineata) and other larval cnidarians. (from wikipedia) These are organism of microscopic sizes with sticky bodies that are easily trapped in our clothes and hair. These organism are harmless when in sea water but its when we leave the water that these organism get crushed, dries up or exposed to freshwater causing them to die and release certain chemicals that causes the itch.

And its not actually new to the island and mind you, it can cause severe itchiness, and I'm currently suffering from it. The symptoms do not appear immediately, which also happened to me, since I only noticed the red spots on my body when I got home. To relieve me from this itch, it is recommended to use topical anti-itch cream (diphenhydramine) and a cortisone solution (hydrocortisone), I need to buy this immediately unless I plan to have this for a week.

And the next time I'm going to the beach, I'll make sure that I have a clean sea water for washing these annoying larvae and to take out all contaminated clothing before I wash with fresh water, just in case they'll appear again in our waters.