Beware the bluebottle!

Beware the bluebottle!

The Story

We were releasing a sailfish off the Umzimkulu one afternoon. The North Easter had been blowing for days and was finally stopped by a buster South Westerley – ideal conditions for a billfish on the dirty water line, especially in February.

Stepped over and into the engine well which is always full of water. Had a deep cut between two of my toes from an earlier incident that day – and a devillish bluebottle floated in and got its tentacles right into that cut. Right in. The initial searing sensation – which we alI have experienced hundreds of times, was nothing like anything I felt in the past. The poison had a marked advantage as the blue bottle injected its lethal payload of poision right into my raw flesh.

My lymph glands in my thigh started to swell with excruciating pain, and stupidly with my fingers I put pressure on the golf ball size gland – it seemed to burst and the poison entered the rest of me – searing pangs of pain right through my consciousness. Which I nearly lost a number of times.

6 Hours later and the pain finally subsided. There was just nothing to be done . Just crawled into the cabin and lay in asemi- paralysed state – unable to move or anything, until we got back in. Normally the pain only lasts 20 minutes, before it becomes barely an itch. Not this time!

Beware the (blue) bottle! They love this time of the year.

Bluebottles vs Portuguese man-o-war

The Portuguese man-o-war is a monster – with up to 30 cm long float sometimes, with numerous long stinging tentacles and one fully loaded main stinger.  Lucky for us, we don’t get them in our waters. These guys really leave you with problems. The stings open into wounds like welts and all sorts of complications can, and do arise.

Our Bluebottle is much smaller and more friendly, normally an inch or two, but up to 15 cms sometimes. Their single stinging tentacle is proportionately longer – the bigger the bluebottle. And fortunately, the sting is a lot less severe.
They both shoot tiny hooks into your skin which unfold and squirt the poison into you, with no chance of stopping it, once it has found its mark.

Bio

Although a blue bottle is actually made up of four seperate but integrated organisms that cannot survive without eachother (zooids), it still seems to be able to think and even steer. They use the wind and currents to get around and sometimes they certainly seem to be chasing you as you try frantically to get away from them. Half of bluebottles are right handed and the other half left – their differently angled floats (sails) determine that each goes in a different direction – guaranteeing good distribution.
One of the zooids is dedicated to reproduction. They just make more and more of themselves, not needing to mate (lucky with all those stingers in the way!).

They hunt small fish, plankton and micro organisms with their poison tentacles. From 3 metres, a bluebottle can retract it’s stinger right back into itself where another of the zooids transfer the food into the energy they need to survive.

They are preyed upon by crabs, nudi-branches , purple-shelled snails, plough shells (on the beach), Loggerhead turtle, sunfish and the blanket octopus (which has been known to sport bluebottle stingers as protection, as they are immune to the poison).

The Sting

Once you have been had by a bluebottle, there is no quick fix. Firstly get the blue stinging tentacles off you as fast as you can -using a cloth- not your fingers. Then hunker down for the ride. The pain only really lasts a short time – but it seems like ages as the poison tries to make its way into your body, via the lymph glands which swell and become the focus of your pain, as the situation develops.

Many old wives tales abound – vinegar (makes it worse), fresh water (also) and girls dont believe the boys about female urine being the only way! Warm saltwater, alcohol and an epsom salts solution, also warm – are recommended. And the age old cure of meat tenderiser certainly has made a difference before, aswell as the evergreen aloe leaves that grow everywhere you find bluebottles.

The longer you are exposed to the stinger, the worse your sting will be. Different people have different reactions too, some people need medical treatment immediately as the poison tries to interfere with basic functions like breathing. Most people are fine in an hour, but dont take a chance if you see somebody developing adverse reactions to the sting – get them to an out-patients fast!

Even when lying washed up on the beach – their stingers are primed and dangerous, and sometimes tentacles break off in the surf so you cant even see them coming!

Beware the blue bottle!