Jellyfish arrive on time
but off target for Oahu

Oahu's jellyfish invasion came right on schedule yesterday, just not in the usual places.

The box jellyfish advisory for yesterday and today warned that the most commonly affected areas are Waikiki Beach and the Ala Moana Beach swimming channel.

But when lifeguards checked the shoreline yesterday morning, they found about 150 jellyfish at Makaha and 100 at Maili on West Oahu, and only a handful at Waikiki.

"The jellyfish have consistently shown up right on schedule in Waikiki for at least the last 11 years," ocean safety officer Landy Blair said. "What we saw this morning was a significant amount that was much larger than what we usually see on Oahu's west shores."

Box jellyfish typically show up on Oahu's south shores nine to 10 days after a full moon.

Blair said this was the first recorded jellyfish sighting this year at Makaha Beach. He said the last time Makaha saw more than 100 jellyfish on their shoreline was in April 2004.

Although many jellyfish washed up on Makaha beaches in the morning, when beach-goers arrived in the afternoon, the creatures were nowhere to be found.

As of 3 p.m. yesterday, lifeguards at Makaha beach had not received any reports of jellyfish sightings or stings. Overall, ocean safety officials said they received few reports of stings from all beaches on west-facing shores.

"A lot of times, they issue a warning, but we don't run into any jellyfish," said Bob Beard who runs the Oahu Dive Center and went diving yesterday morning. "We've been diving for the past four days out here -- sometimes twice a day -- and we haven't seen any jellyfish."

Lifeguard Craig Davidson, who has patrolled Makaha's shores for 14 years, noted: "There were a lot of sea turtles swimming close to shore, and it looks like they may have been eating the jellyfish.

"There were also two boys who were just fascinated with the jellyfish, so they went up and down the shoreline around 10 a.m. using a bag, stick and their hands to pick up all of the jellyfish."

Well, not all of them.

A trio of cousins collected about 30 more jellyfish while combing the shore yesterday afternoon.

"We just collect them for fun," 10-year-old Nicole Gonzalez said as she skipped along the shoreline holding a net full of jellyfish. "We found about 70 on Sunday at Bellows and took it home with us, so we'll probably add this to our collection."