Jellyfish suspect
in stings at lagoon

The mystery forced the cancellation
of a canoe regatta today

A University of Hawaii oceanographer suspects tiny jellyfish may be the cause of painful, itchy stings that canoe paddlers have suffered recently at Keehi Lagoon.

The mysterious stings led organizers yesterday to cancel the Hui Wa'a canoe regatta scheduled for today, and future regattas are in doubt until paddlers learn more about what's in the water there.

Plankton specialist Susan Brown took samples at Keehi Lagoon Friday. When she looked at them under a microscope, she saw tiny box jellyfish, no bigger than the head of a pin.

Brown said she doesn't know if the jellyfish are immature versions of the much larger box jellyfish (Carybdea alata) that wash ashore on Oahu's South Shore nine days after every full moon.

"Quite a few box jellyfish live in mangroves, so my guess is this is a really small species that lives in mangroves," Brown said.

Canoe paddlers reported some stings at Keehi as far back as February and March, when high school teams were holding regattas there.

Paddlers said yesterday that the stinging seemed to get worse after some mangroves were cleared from the bank of Keehi Lagoon months ago, and that they seemed to be worse after rains.

Watson Okubo, Clean Water Branch monitoring and analysis supervisor for the state Department of Health, said he has known about the paddlers' complaints since March. He said he didn't realize how urgent the situation was until Hannie Anderson, president of the Oahu Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association, called him last week.

Okubo said the department is waiting for special nets from the mainland to drag the lagoon and pick up things that might be causing the problem.

He said Brown is one of the experts he plans to ask to identify what they find.

"All we can do is identify (the organism). Then we can give that information to canoe paddlers to protect themselves," Okubo said.

Leaders of Oahu's two canoe racing associations, who jointly represent more than 4,500 paddlers, said yesterday that they are disappointed that the state has taken so long to investigate the problem.

Hui Wa'a Vice President Tambry Young praised member canoe clubs for voting yesterday to cancel today's regatta and pledged that the association board would "do our best to come up with a solution to this issue."

"Our responsibility as an association is to provide a safe, healthy environment for paddlers -- mind, body and spirit," Young said.

Hui Wa'a has four more regattas scheduled for Keehi, while OHCRA has one.

If what's stinging paddlers can't be controlled or doesn't go away, both associations will try to relocate future regattas.

Rebel Kapoi, who handles permitting for Hui Wa'a races, emphasized that the associations will need extraordinary cooperation from city parks and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to get regatta permits on short notice.

"Parks people and the state are going to have to help us," agreed Joan Malama, OHCRA second vice president. "This is the state team sport, so they really have to do something to help us out."

Most paddlers who have reported stings or bites said the welts went away after a few days or a week. But some said they lasted longer, and a handful have seen doctors.

Paddler Randy Sanborn, a member of Manu O Ke Kai club, may have the most alarming story. He was holding canoes for high school races in February at Keehi when he got stung or bit.

"The wound itched and I scratched it," Sanborn recalled. Several days later one dime-sized wound on his leg had grown to the size of a silver dollar and was so painful he could hardly walk.

Flesh-eating disease was ruled out, but he was hospitalized four days with intravenous antibiotics to get rid of the infection that started with the mysterious "bites."

Sanborn has since returned to the water, but yesterday he warned fellow Hui Wa'a members: "This thing is serious."