Welcome to Florida
if you live here or were thinking of visiting please check red tide report daily before you get in the water
There are a lot of things you should know as a beach goer honestly like tide strength under toe storm and shark activity, as well as commonly found sea creatures per season at this beach aka jelly fish sting ray and other poisonous ☠️ Things
but what they don’t tell you is
a) don’t go past the drop off. You’ll know it when you feel the ground disappear from under your feet. This is where sharks wait to feed, and you become chum instantly
b) if you get bumped, it wasn’t an accident. This is what sharks do before they eat you.
c) if a wave hit you really hard and you go tumbling under water, you need to protect your head by closing your hands together on the back of your head and then press your elbows together around the sides, and chin tucked down into your chest until the wave ceases
d) if you’re drowning or getting “pulled out” by undertoe, close your mouth and keep it shut. People’s natural instinct sometimes is to scream but this is how your lungs fill with sand. Doctors can pump water out of your lungs all day and treat for potential infection, but sand is much more difficult to remove from the lungs and you will likely die within minutes as it feels like your lungs are filling with concrete. Keep your mouth shut.
E) next drowning advice is swim with the current sideways along the shore parallel to it or the horizontal lines of the waves. Not directly inward toward the shore. This is how you save yourself after you’ve been pulled out too far by undertoe and prevent drowning or getting pulled out further in severe rough conditions that are too difficult to beat otherwise
f) if you get stung by a jelly fish or sting ray, put 130 degree or very hot warm water liquid on it this will relieve the pain while you make to the ER
g) shuffle your feet and it scares away sting rays if you’re worried about them but I honestly in my entire life living in Florida and being avid beach goer and life guard have never encountered one so it’s very rare I’ve also never been stung by a jelly fish and I’ve swam with them and swam through a large school of them (diving in a rustic deep ocean part in the keys). It’s rare for someone to get stung and once again I’ve never seen it happen to anyone while I was at the beach in all my years of beach going, they are quite few and far between when you do see one, and usually how to know if there are any sparsely in the water is you will see one or two washes up on the shore line. If there’s none on the shore like that there’s never any in the water. I’ve honestly never had a problem.
h) keep your eyes out for dark shadows in the water this is how you know there is a shark. Or you might have spotted a fin in the distance pop up. That’s when you take a break and get out of the water. if a shark is biting you and killing you or someone you wanna save, you must stick with full force like you’re trying to punch through a glass wall, both fists into the gills of the shark. This will make it stop immediately. Then you must stop the bleeding and go to ER to get lungs checked cuz they’re probably got water in them from you freaking out in the water and then you get to just be monitored and put on meds for preventative infection pneumonia and they take care of the bite. Lots of antibiotics.
j don’t know anyone personally who has been bitten and I have never been bumped, but that’s because I don’t go into water where it’s up to my neck or more. Not only is this an under toe and drowning risk but this is where you’re getting closer to shark territory.
I) sharks mistake your limbs as fish is why they attack (or you were releasing blood into the water from an open wound and it attracted them.) they pick up this blood literally from miles away. But yeah, their vision is not as good, and they think your arms and legs are flopping around floating and stuff you look like a fish to them. But if you stand up right like a human they do not think your legs and feet and hands are fish.
this is why surfers have more risk, the water they go in is too deep number one and then number two when they paddle the shadow of the board and the flopping hands look a big fish to a shark
they dont actually desire to eat humans and don’t want to finish eating once they have discovered, that is why they don’t drag you with them into the sea to continue devouring you and just swim off. If they do bite you it’s like an accident and then they release and swim away. It’s just their bite is so powerful and devastating? Even one bite can result in the loss of a limb
J) sea shells hurt when you step on them. Look where you’re walking on land you might step on a crab or a hole with a crab in it / a snake. In the water, I just kind of scoot my feet forward slowly to make sure I’m not stepping directly onto a rock or crab, it hurts for a second nothing too terrible but, just an annoyance. This doesn’t occur very often but it’s something to just know.
k) sharks are much bigger and faster than you think, but they are very stupid. I once swam past an infection of several hammer heads by chumming the water on the other side of the dock. Do not swim when you are fishing or chumming the water, this is how you get eaten alive. Seriously, do not do this. Do not. Lol.
but if you are in a desperate situation, this is how you get them distracted and can *risk* getting in the water and swimming to shore and hope they don’t notice you. (I was doing a weird survivor thing on a remote island, don’t ask, but this is not a usual occurance on Florida’s coasts, this was in a remote island many many miles off the coast in the pacific)
l) most sharks have trackers on them and you can look at the shark report and surf report with various surf report apps
m) stay parallel to the surfers boards. If the nose or tail end is facing you, there is a chance you will get hit with it possibly in the head. The bruises last a very very long time. Try and stay about 10-15 feet away from the surfers beside them not in front of or behind the you will literally get surfed over stead of ran over.. get it. Yeah. But it hurts to get hit in the neck with a surf board so yeah keep your distance lol
n) if you are new to surfing, do not attach the surf strap to your ankle. You could drown yourself or end up hitting your head on the ocean floor, as there is an experienced finesse required when getting tangled up in a crash from a wave with an umbilical chord to the board attached to your ankle.
O) wear sunglasses, just get the kind that don’t come off easily, or that you don’t love. Because you’ll probably lose them in the ocean on accident if you’re not used to having to be mindful of them. Also, put your phone in a water proof bag case. Trust me. Just do it. especially if you’re going on a boat or anywhere sandy.
p) wear sunscreen, and make sure it’s even when you apply it or you’ll look like a candy cane. It hurts too. Reapply every couple of hours to be safe, spray kind is easier. Apply a good layer of it generously. this is powerful stuff, and it wears off quicker than the bottle says. Don’t forget your ears and scalp. Really cover everything, your eyebrows, just not your eye lids.
don’t put oils on your face I recommend the spray and just spray it on your hand then rub it in as these dry down and stay put but do not put too close to the sides of your eyes or under leave a good 1-2 inch space around your enter eye socket to distance the sunscreen from. Or it will move around and drop down into your eye and be impossible to get out. If this happens don’t use your hands towel or bathing suit to get the oil out of your eye. Use a chemical eye wash from CVS after washing hands with soap, and repeat repeat repeat in the shower rinsing and rinsing the eye until it’s clear
(this takes quite a while sometimes could be hours so I highly recommend you follow what I told you to do and you will be fine as long as you don’t rub your eye with sunscreen hands lol)
q) wear bug spray and bring it with you everywhere you go I’m talking bring back ups of the shit. Don’t go to restaraunts that are out door and on the water you’ll get bugs on you ouch biting. Florida’s beaches at night are covered in bugs I’m talking everywhere so I don’t go on the beaches at night but
if you must inhale moths into your nose and get covered in sand flea and other types of itchy bites (the bug spray doesn’t 100% work btw) bring a really good flash light to look at where you’re walking so you don’t accidentally step in a hole and roll your ankle lol
it’s pitch black on the ocean at night
r) if you’re scared of sharks, sunset is when you don’t want to swim, and after that point. As that’s when they feed.
s) sex on the beach is not pleasant and you can get arrested and have it on your permanent record as well as spend the night in jail
t) don’t bring open containers and trash on the beach. Technically illegal but. No ones looking tbh.
