Got an itch from riding?
 

This might be the cause.

http://www.fau.edu/safe/sea-lice.html

I noticed alot of guys getting this lately. It didn't seem to affect me, but maybe this is the culprit.

No, I think they are sea sponges. It is more a burning along any part of the body that touches the bottom of the ocean and although the burning is INTENSE during that evening, it always clears up by morning. Kind of strange but definitely not sea lice...

It appears that sea lice float and what we were experiencing only occurred after skin made contact with the mud at the skyway and at east beach. It also did not cause a rash like the one in the picture but rather just a redness of the skin for a few hours...

http://www.nativeplanet.org/health/dangeroussealife.htm

Here's a good one for ya..

Last year my friend Dan and I were out on his 22ft sailboat just outside of Boca Ciega Bay... We anchored up, grabbed some plastick scrapers and jumped overboard to do some quick clean up on the waterline of the boat. He was in a spring suit, i was just in shorts. Things were going good but the number of boats speeding in the nearby channel were making it very difficult to work so we decided to just quickly finish up and call it a day. I got onboard and saw that I had a small amount of sea critters attached to my shorts.. nothing too bad. I dont know if they were sea lice, but they were almost too small to see with and had little legs on them. It was pretty damn gross.

I changed to clean clothes and Dan was just climbing back on board. He had been in the water for about 5 min more than me and was covered in dirt and muck. He was getting ready to change out of his sprink suit when he noticed that the dirt was not dirt, but instead, mounds and mounds of the little sea critters... probably about 2 inch thick and covering about 50% of his entire suit. It was perhaps the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. He freaked (as would anyone) and jumped overboard to clean his suit.

We dont scrape the boat like that anymore.

:shock:

Sounds NASTY!!! At least the things at EB and SW don't cling to ya!!!! 8)

We've had some clingy circular critters attached to our booties and lower legs of our wetsuits out at the SW. I was in the habit of taking a breather out at the shallows on long SW sessions.. would just roll up and sit down for a few minutes..

no more.

i go to the beach to rest or only go to the pure sand shallows..

Good idea!!! Since I am still doing the walk of shame my fair share, I have that same issue but have not noticed the stickies...Guess I won't chance it!!! The reason I keep getting stung so bad is because I can't get my jibe down and keep eating it about 50% of the time I try...I also tried a small jump and PAID for it last week!!!

We need to rally a group together and get our asses over to the Water Complex in Orlando for some board-skill sessions.

I'll DEFINITELY second that but I also do have the boat if anyone is interested in wakeboarding during these windless weekends...

sign me up for some wakeboarding!!!

Hmmm..

No idea what it is. I have spent literally thousands of hours in the waters of Tampa and along Florida (as required of my past job) and just fishing/wakeboarding/riding as so forth. I have never had an encounter with anything of any real consequence or a rash or anything over all the years. So, I don't know what you guys are getting into out there, but some were complaining of rashes I heard. Weird stuff. It's probably skyway stench/runoff disease :shock: Do our local sponges cause rashes?