8.22.2026 – great wide sea wherein are

great wide sea wherein are
things creeping innumerable
both small and great beasts

Today’s haiku is adapted from the Bible verse, “So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. Psalm 104:25 (KJV).

An unusually high number of jellyfish are crowding Delaware’s beaches this summer amid climate change and other environmental factors – keeping some beachgoers out of the ocean and stinging lifeguards as well as bathers.

Beach safety patrols in the state have reported hundreds of daily stings as the jellyfish have increased with intensifying environmental factors, including warmer waters, hot and dry conditions, and water circulation favorable to the invertebrates.

Jellyfish have been spotted in the water and washed ashore across popular beach destinations, including South Bethany Beach, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach and Lewes Beach, and the frequency of stings has alarmed beach lovers.

Nico Caceres, the Rehoboth Beach patrol captain said in an interview: “The jellyfish for the past couple weeks have been very plentiful … The type of stings we’re seeing this summer, we haven’t really seen in past summers.”

Caceres, who has been stung “plenty of times” himself, explained that the effect of stings he has typically seen in past seasons last between 30 and 45 minutes, but that this summer’s stings have caused pain and other symptoms lasting an entire day.

“We have been seeing a lot of smaller children who actually end up vomiting a lot,” Caceres said. Along with many beachgoers, the lifeguards on his team who have also been stung have been avoiding going into the water out of concern about being stung again.

“People think we close the water because no one’s going in, but it’s just because people don’t want to get stung. It’s pretty much a guarantee you’ll get stung if you go,” he said, adding that since the end of July, his team has recorded between 150 and 200 stings a day.

From the article, ‘Its pretty much a guarantee you’ll get stung’: jellyfish keep swimmers out of Delaware beaches, by Maya Yang in Lewes Beach, Delaware in the Guardian, 8/22/2026.

Sorry to report, not just the beaches in Delaware but the last couple of weeks of calm off shore breezes, blazing hot temps and no storms, the water at Hilton Head is hot, swampy, salty and filled with starfish, jellyfish and other things you would rather not know about.

I have been stung by jellies over the last three weeks and today, the wife and I spotted a large Atlantic Sting ray in the surf and then later in our day at the beach, we got chased out of the waves by another ray coming right for us.

As I ran past my wife to get out of the ocean, she asked why I didn’t try to get her out first.

Told her I thought that the sting ray should have been all the motivation she needed.