Month: July 2024

Earlier, when the tide was a few feet higher, I had brushed against a jellyfish and got lucky. The tentacles were drifting away from me.

Getting stung by jellyfish is a July ritual for folks who enjoy bouncing in the bay. Not fun, but not terrible, either, so long as its one of our more common critters.

This particular jelly, unlikely the one I encountered earlier, got too close to the edge, and now it sits under the dying light of last night’s sunset.

As different as we are, we share many of the same proteins, the same DNA code, the same need for sunlight to keep us alive.

Our bay is home to sand tiger sharks–like much of Philly, they love to spend their summers lolling about in the Delaware Bay.

They are not particularly aggressive, and if you pay attention at dusk, you might see a fin slicing through the water. While most fins we see belong to dolphins, sand tigers can occasionally be seen traveling through shallow waters near the beach. They gulp air and hang at the surface, like our Philly friends roasting on floats.

As much as I like spending time under the bay’s surface, I avoid swimming at night.

Here’s why:

Not very aggressive doesn’t mean never aggressive–there have been 36 unprovoked sand tiger attacks, maybe not a whole lot considering how close we swim to them.

But for 36 humans, it was aggressive enough. And in every incident, the human survived.