Day 29 ocean swim

If you look closely you can see two figures by the water as I run towards the sea. They are a pair of teenage girls who’d been boogie-boarding in the shorebreak. I came back to them immediately after jumping in, concerned by the look on the face of the older girl sitting down on the sand. Sure enough, a stingray had got her, and her foot was bleeding profusely and she was in a lot of pain. I explained that she’d be alright, though the wound would bleed for a long time, and I recommended she get home soon in order to immerse her foot in warm water to dull the pain. She was a trooper, though her foot was a bloody mess and the pain—pulsing like a dozen repeated bee stings—showed clearly on her face. Her dad soon arrived (he’d been surfing further out) to help his daughter hobble home. She asked me if the stingrays were the “squishy” things she felt sometimes on the bottom? I replied I that yes, I thought they were, and I reminded her to shuffle her feet underwater rather than stepping in order to shoo away the stingray and to help avoid stepping directly on them.

I remember when I was stung (jabbed or lanced might be a better word) a few years back and how the pain seemed the most almighty thing I’d ever known, and how the