Cafe on the Beach at the Manatee County Public Beach was doing a brisk business today.
I’ve been cooped up in the house all week so I just had to take advantage of the clear weather this afternoon and take a walk on the beach. I’ll shut up and let the pictures do the talking.
A few spring-breakers mingled with the vacationing families and snowbirds on Anna Maria's beaches today.
Spring breakers gather on Holmes Beach, Anna Maria Island
The surf was up today but there were surprisingly few surfers in the water.
There were an unusual number of jellyfish on the beach today. The radiating brown markings identify this sea nettle, which can give quite a sting.
This large jellyfish appears to be a Mushroom cap jelly. Several days of onshore winds bring the jellyfish ashore on the gulf beaches. This jelly is upside down, so you are looking at the underside. This jelly does not have long trailing tentacles like the sea nettle or the man-of-war.
This is one of the top surfing spots on the southwest gulf coast.
I don't usually see a lot of longboards at this spot, but this guy was getting a lot of rides. It's not the easiest place to longboard.
Some of the peaks were pretty big, but not as steep and fast as usual at this spot.
No one escapes the occasional spectacular wipe-out. He does look surprised though.
The end of a good day of surfing the gulf coast of Florida.
The end of life for a large mushroom cap jellyfish.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Cool Pictures David. I always want to put the jellyfish back in the water but can never figure out how to do it without getting stung. I do throw the starfish back in when I see them on the beach.
I’d love to see some of your other albums too.
I think that in order to truly “save” the jellyfish you’d have to take it 50 miles offshore. Otherwise it’s just going to drift back to the beach. Jellyfish are quite plentiful so I think there is probably no cause for interfering with nature like there is with sea turtles. Sometimes I carry live shells back to the shallow water when its obvious they’ve been stranded by an unusually high tide, but I have no way of knowing if that’s a good thing to do. Feels good anyway and I’m sure does no harm.
You can see more of my photos on my Picasa web albums here: http://picasaweb.google.com/davidmcree
I’m looking forward to the day that I get to go to the beach. Thanks for the taster.
These are great! I saw a few surfers at Vilano Beach this weekend, but the surf wasn’t much and neither are my pictures! Your wipeout is better than mine :–).
April 5, 2010 – while on Anna Maria Island, we ran across a huge mushroom cap jellyfish that was washing up on shore. Today (April 6), we saw even more of these jellyfish close to shore or washing up on the sand.
Thanks for the report Teresa. This seems to be a big year for jellyfish. Don’t usually see that many on Anna Maria.
We have been coming down to visit my dad during our spring break
from Minnesota for 6 years now and have never really seen any jellyfish before. we were there 3-25 to 4-4-2010. Water was colder than I remember also. Iwas trying to look at pictures online
so I thought they were the Moon Jellyfish. They were only 4″ or so wide. But, I am from Minnesota…….
Still love Anna Maria though!
Hi Pez,
Yes, the water was unusually cold this winter for an extended period of time. And you are definitely correct, Anna Maria does not usually have many jellyfish. But there have been quite a few this year (though nothing like what they are getting in Miami). The ones you saw might have been moon jellies. Have you had a look at my website pages with jellyfish photos? I’ve got some photos and video of moon jellies:
http://www.beachhunter.net/thingstoknow/jellyfish/index.htm
Hi! I have seen many Mushroom jellies at St Pete Beach this year, still seeing them wash up on shore. I had never seen them here before in my 3 years here. Do they sting? And do you think it’s better to just leave them where they wash up, or should they be moved up further on the beach to dry out? Of course, if they don’t sting, it doesn’t matter. But tourists get so curious, they poke around (with fingers!), and that is quite unnerving… LOL What a wonderful place to live, I love the amount of beauty we have here and feel very fortunate!
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for being persistent in trying to comment on this. I believe you were trying to post earlier to my old blog and it wouldn’t publish your comment. I tried to intervene, but I couldn’t make it work either. That’s why I switched from the old Google Blogspot blog to this newfangled Wordpress blog. Works much better!
Thanks again!