The bluebottle ...

... it is a beautiful and dangerous thing!

But ... once stung you will never forget the burning sensation that made you cry, scream and run up and down the beach. WHAAAAAAA!  As a child though, one got to know the nature of the beast ... such a little thing ... that sting.

Just like the jack jumper ants in Tasmania, the remedy is not far away. 

I noticed this bluebottle on Malua Bay beach, Yuin Country yesterday. If I had have encountered it in the water I may be telling a different story. As children we would be warned to watch out for bluebottles and on occasion we would be stung. The pain is immediate. The remedy: grab a handful of wet sand and rub the sand very hard and roughly into the raging red marks left by the long stinger tentacle. It was dreadful when they wrapped around your legs in the water ... you had to get out and get the sand to rub at the tentacles and get them off. Sometimes you could kick the tentacles off in the water but you had to be very careful. 

I am glad I haven't been stung by one of these in a while.

Oh, the jack jumpers ... grab the bracken fern growing everywhere in Tas ... rub the fern well into the bite and it will, eventually negate the sting!