Man o' Wars

On a short (2 mile round trip) beach walk this evening I found 3 freshly washed up portuguese man o' wars. They're apparently not uncommon around here during prevailing onshore winds, but three is two more than I've seen on any one walk previously. Add the one I saw on my run yesterday, and I'm not sure I'd want to be in the water right now.

They're very cool-looking animals (colonies of animals, actually), and about as alien a life form as anything I can imagine, but I don't want to meet up with one in the water. A few years back a scuba diver was killed on one of the local wreck dives by one; I guess he went into cardiac arrest. There's no great place to have a heart attack, but underwater is definitely sub-optimal. Our boat captain, Joe, once managed to get a few stray tentacles off a wet suit onto his face and he said it was like someone had thrown a pan of hot grease in his face.