A moon jellyfish, like a creature from another planet

26th June 2023

It feels like a family outing again. Remarkably, we have the perfect beach to ourselves.

The endless view to the horizon could be anywhere. Blue sea, blue sky, sparkles carelessly tipped from a fresh-faced sun, gentle ripples, clear water.

We miss Rupert’s Mum and the chaos that can be Rupert, but it is a quiet and perfect swim, water so clean we could see our feet and incidental underwater sand dunes that are like mounds in a climbing centre built only to lark about on.

It’s a surprise not to see other bodies in the water. Perhaps because it was a Monday, perhaps the strong westerly, not cold but noticeable, which was quite content to carry us out to depths we hadn’t planned just when we stopped paying attention

The only other body I saw in the sea was a moon jellyfish, translucent in the clear water, like a creature from another planet. It was the first of the summer for me, small saucer-sized, floating flat then curled into a bowl and drifting away. If the hot weather carries on, there’ll doubtless be hundreds.

Newly hatched, they glisten like jelly babies on the shingle. They’re properly called polyps and break off like buds from a stalk to become adults. Fully grown, they’re fancy see-through dinner plates washed up at the water’s edge. When I was younger, I would diligently pick them up and put them back in the sea. Trouble is, they’re delicate, between jelly and gel and impossible not to tear.

When I was younger still, we’d bring tiny nets and buckets and collect them. Thoughtless and inconsiderate perhaps but as jellyfish don’t have a central nervous system, they don’t actually feel the splash as they land back in the sea.

It’s likely we’ll get prickly jellyfish too as the season goes on. Those with colour and clearly definable legs that if they touch you feel as sharp as a fresh field nettle on a sunny morning. They leave a sting but most often it lasts only as long as the nettle’s one does.

A couple of the gang swam at the weekend and were surrounded by tiny fish. Bass, most likely; signs of healthy water that’s now too warm for what were once commonplace cod.