Sickest session at Cypress
 

I got off work at 6 and ran home to grab my gear this evening. There has been such little winds, that when I saw the trees blowing a bit, I was desperate to get even an hour session. Well I'm sure happy I decided to go out.

I went to Cypress beach, and was the only one there. Pumped up my fifteen, threw it up in the air and was able to get in a solid hour before the sun set. It was really light winds, probably wouldn't have been able to get away with it had it not been for my weight (150lb), but still worth it.

Just as the sun was setting, I decided it would be my last run. I headed out towards the Howard Franklin away from the beach, and just as I passed the jetty, I saw something surface about 6 feet downwind of me. At first I had no idea what it was since I didn't get a good look. My questions were answered when I saw a second surface right after. Manatees!

I'm guessing it was a mother and child because the first ended up being what looked to be like 10 feet while the smaller was about 5. I was wondering if they would still swim with me if I headed out to see. I ended up riding side by side with them until I was about 100 feet from the bridge before I turned around. My trip back wasn't as exciting, don't know where they went.

Coming from Long Island I've never experienced anything remotely close to this. No doubt this was the sickest session I've ever had.

That's awesome. Sometimes its not the newest trick that can make this sport what it is. It can be the simple things.

Saw some Tarpon last week starting to show up along the Gulf as well. For those of you that fish for these monsters, there here!!!!!

Definitely cool seeing things in the water. For me, that's at least half the fun of kiting and never gets old.

The one thing I don't want to see again for a long time though is a sting ray injury to my foot. Ouch. I have spent literally thousands of hours walking in salt water environments and never been stung... til today. I did marine research, primarily of sea grass beds and related shallow water areas, and logged at least 3,000 hours walking where rays are, is my guess. Today I got hit for the first time by a ray. The irony is I saw how many there were, shuffled and took precautions... and still got hit. So... not convinced about shuffling :(
They are THICK out there in some areas, so just beware.
I consider myself to have a high pain tolerance and I have to say, that was a very painful experience.

If hit, it's gonna hurt for hours. What helped me was soaking my foot in water as hot as I could bear and pain meds provided by Dr. Cornel. Ice made it worse. Vinegar is 'sposed to help. I actually just recommend the drugs. :) That definitely worked.
I am still surprised by how much it hurt and that I couldn't zone it out. Usually I can zone out pain. I hope no one else experiences that this summer.

Going tarpon fishing tomorrow :) Been a couple times in the last few weeks and the tarpon and the white bait are ridiculous in a few areas. Been seeing lots of fish off the beach as well. Mainly whiting, pompano and snook. The health of the area's waters have been getting better and better for years around here, and the improved fishing is just one reflection of this.

I can second that about a stingray sting.

I got hit last season for the first time as well. Damn that was some intense pain. Thought I was going to lose it. Was out at three rooker for the day so it was awhile till I could get home and begin to medicate it. Oh yeah, peeing on it doesn't do shit.

Heavy pain killer was the ticket. As soon as the drug kicked in, pain gone. Like instant relief. A good dose of vicadin can go along way with this kind of pain.

i agree, one of the coolest things about this sport is being able to see things like manatees haha

never seen a stingray yet, sounds intense tho...and real shitty haha

Missed Stingray...
 

Bob, that sucks you got stung by the sting ray....thanks for sharing, now I know what to look forward if it happens to me.

This past April I spent three weekends in a row kiting in Isla Morada and kept running into giant sting rays....it was cool to follow them just to see them closer....then one monster changed course, crossed me perpendicularly and I surfed right over it! It scared the hell out of me because I have heard how much it hurts...lucky for me, the animal panicked and scurried away.

These sting rays are about 4 feet wide and very dark in color....can you tell me if all of them sting? I understand that there are some that are benign and harmless (Sting Ray Beach - Cayman). I just don't know if we have the good ones in Florida or not.

Anyways, I agree that one of the better parts of kiting is not just where it takes me, but what I see in the water. Nothing (so far) beats the humpback whales spraying and jumping in the water I saw in Manta, Ecuador. That was surreal. It felt like I was kitesurfing in Sea World! If any of you get the chance to go to Ecuador, the wind blows in Manta 18k-30k every single day from June-December...excellent place to kite.

Paul Menta just teamed up with a friend of mine down there to open a Kite House Ecuador. Check it out in the Kite House website. It's far away, but well worth it. I'll be down there again this summer for sure.

Think this is a jellyfish thing, not a sting ray thing, unless of course you are just looking for excuses to get peed on :confused:

I went to Stingray City in Grand Cayman a few months back on a kiting trip. They will sting you, as a matter of fact the tour guide showed us the stinger and it was HUGE!! not something you would want to mess with, guess thats why they tell you to do the shuffle even at stngray city!

I got stung about 2 years ago at Lassing Park while teaching...TWICE on the same foot, about 30 minutes apart..how's that for probabilities?...and yes - it hurts like hell.

My student was a surgeon whose advice was to immediately soak in hot water (as hot as you can take without burning yourself) to denature the toxin...then allow wound to remain open to drain toxins and contaminants for a few days...DO NOT ALLOW TO SCAB OVER RIGHT AWAY.

Also, if the barb is broken off inside you must have this removed immediately otherwise serious infection will follow. Under any circumstances it's not a bad idea to see a doctor to make sure you do not have complications.

In my case, I followed the initial advice - I was able to get very hot water from my van cooktop...and this killed the pain almost instantly - and I kept soaking in refreshed hot water for the next hour.

What I did wrong: I kept going into the water for the next few weeks. 4 weeks later I was in the OBX and my foot was severely infected - the physician that I finally saw there was very concerned and wanted to put me in the hospital. It took a month of antibiotics to get it under control...not a good situation.

A few weeks ago, while in the OBX, another kiter got hit WHILE RIDING HIS BOARD (which I did not know could happen) when we were doing a downwinder. Apparently the stingray schools will swim near the surface and they will lash out if scared or threatened. Another friend in the OBX who is a commercial fisherman say that when a stingray is accidentally netted or hooked everything stops on the boat and the stingray is "handled" very cautiously...look what happened to Steve Irwin!

Certain rays are worse than others...the cow nose rays are a "pelagic" species (usually swimming around in small schools- and beautiful to watch as your ride over them) and the barbs are closer to their bodies and not as dangerous, but the devil rays are bad though and they lurk in the sandy bottom often difficult to see. The rays start showing up in numbers during April when the water warms up.

watch out...not a fun experience getting stung.

Yeah, first time I see somebody feeling the pain after being stung and I definetely don't want to experience that. Thanks for all the advices!

Thanks for helping out so much when it happened Erick, as well as Dr. C.
I am taking your guy's advice of not letting the site of entry heal up, and took a small knife and re-opened the wound a little and let it bleed. It is still sore today and a tad swollen. Re-opening the wound let much of the fluid off, relieving the pressure and helping to reduce the swelling a little.

I went fishing yesterday with a Podiatrist. He sees this stuff on occasion and said water as hot as you can take it is the best course of action, so that seems unanimous.
Oh - one tarpon, one big shark and don't kite in the Egmont Key channel right now. :)

That sucks about the stingray sting scott

hope you feel better soon , at least the fish seem to be biting :)

heal up and we'll see ya' back on the water in no time.

Thanks Raul

It's back to normal now. Going out (fishing) again tomorrow night.
Saw at least 200 'poons last time out. Pretty crazy.

let me know the good spots sometime, I have a more than worthy sportfishing boat now , esp. this side of the bay or sooo

My wife and I got stung last month about 3 days apart. She got hit first and was in serious pain ( about snapped my wrist while grinding her teeth during the car ride home ). 3 days later I got hit walking out to get her board. I have a new found respect for my wifes pain tolerance now... we both were somewhat functional about 2 - 3 hours later. We joke about it now that its over but you can see us walking more cautiously at Bald Point

I need some poon too, where did you see all of this?? :D

Oh man... all this info is useful. I've seen a few at Matheson's pass right by me. I guess i'll be standing still when i see them swim by. But at times when walking it could be difficult to see them.

That's the real problem, unfortunately, is that you most likely won't see the one that gets you, if one does, for several reasons. Mainly imo is that if it's not submerged under sand/mud, you won't/can't step on him.

I was actually wearing polarized glasses that day, and saw a bunch of them scurry away from a buried/hidden position before I got stung. Once I saw them scurrying, I made everyone else aware that they were in the area and to take precautions. They were concentrated pretty close to shore btw, less than 30 yards from the shoreline. They were very numerous.
We all starting shuffling, including me, upon realizing we were in a stingray "mine field". Within ten seconds I was hit.
I was hit within 10 feet of the shoreline. The ray that hit me was totally submerged and I could not see him. :( That was the irony to me, that given how many hours I have spent walking in shallow water, the one time I see a bunch AND take precautions, I am hit within seconds. Just goes to show, imo, that sometimes it's just a cold deck and you can't win despite your actions. Actually, I was hit on the top of the foot, not bottom, thanks to shuffling. I understand the bottom of the foot is worse.... so......

Hope no one else gets stung.

The day I got hit I knew they were there, I was looking and shuffling...but then BAM!

Believe me I was looking and shuffling a lot more after that first hit, and then WHAM!! #2.

I now use a 8' long walking probe (with a line and float) in an attempt to clear the "mines" when teaching, and I make the student use it when they walk out without the board while I ride back upwind.

It's not fun explaining to students that there are stingrays and that YES they will sting you if you step on one.

I figure if I get stung again I am out of commission for 2 weeks minimum, paying for a Doctors bill and antibiotics, plus loss of work. Get's expensive, not to mention the pain. Aside from lack of consistent wind this is another reason I don't like teaching in FL after May 1...the probability of encounters with stingrays is too high once the water gets really warm! When I ride during April and May I make sure I look very carefully where I stop, and often let the board sink to the bottom before taking my feet out of the straps.

That's one nice thing about Lake Michigan - no stingrays, sharks, urchins, stinging corals, jellyfish...but the water is COLD, still in the low 50's now, but great wind!

Just got back from riding. :) It was sweet.

Okay... so this morning I went in and talked with a few of the rangers at Ft. DeSoto and talked with Jim Wilson for about 45 minutes. Here are some facts (many blew my mind).

In the last month, North Beach has averaged 6 people stung per day on the week days.
On the weekends, North Beach averages 12 people stung... per day. That's just NB... not all of SPB or anything.

To me, these numbers are pretty crazy. I was guessing 3 per day on the weekend when I went in to ask. Jim told me at one point in time 2 weekends ago that they had 17 people at once receiving aid for being stung by a ray.... INSANE!! :(

Other numbers of interest. Ft. DeSoto receives more visitors per year than the number of visitors to the top 3 State Parks combined. Ft. DeSoto has more annual visitors than Yellow Stone National Park. I knew the place was hopping (which is why I asked), but would not have guessed they received THAT many visitors. Those numbers are not guesses, they are hard numbers based on toll booth stats and other census techniques used by the park. The actual number is a little over 3 million visitors annually.

OK, I am sure you've been working on the computations...

so, what are the odds that you will get stung based on the numbers you gathered? I'll bet they are higher than I would have thought.

Factor in that as a diehard rider kiting in the Tampa Bay area you could spend 4-5 days/week in the water (especially if teaching) and several hours a day. I'll bet the people who typically get stung at Ft. Desoto have gone into the water once for every 50 times we get into the water (if not less).

c'mon "Unimog Bob" I can hear the gears turning from here...;)

maybe we need to develop some kevlar armored booties and spats -that would be stylish!

My take on it is this. I think that there is an inordinately high density of stingrays around Bunces Pass. I have theories as to why, but who cares. I think that for the SPB area in general, being stung is not nearly as likely as being stung at North Beach in the summer.

I wish I had the numbers on how many people have been stung along the entire beach, from CLW to SPB, in the last month. I would be willing to bet that per square mile, NB has a very high density of hits compared to surrounding areas. You would have to do it as man hours in water/square mile or sumtin' to factor in numbers of people in the water.

I think it's unlikely that many people have spent as much time walking in waist deep or ankle deep salt water environments as I have. I am talking literally thousands of hours. Even so, I wasn't stung prior to last weekend. So, in general in your "average area", I think the odds aren't high of being hit by a ray.
But, ... I think I will take a pass on walking the shallows off of NB anytime soon. :)