Training Injuries

I always seem to hurt myself at camp, especially during training. I find bruises that I didn't realize I'd gotten and random scratches all over my legs. It's not really a good look for me, but there's not much I can do about it.

Yesterday, we were learning how to sail on some miniature sailboats. They only hold two people. Before we could practice actually sailing, we had to do a capsize drill. Basically, two people sit inside the sailboat, flip it onto its side, and then right the sailboat and get back in. It sounds pretty straight forward, because it is. Kerri and I were in our own group. When we were righting it the second time, I was in the boat first and was helping pull carry up when someone yelled, "Jenna, your leg is bleeding!" I look down and there's blood all over my upper right leg. I wiped it off, and couldn't see the cut. I couldn't feel anything, so I looked over to see if Kerri was bleeding. She seemed fine, so I looked down again and saw even more blood. Obviously, water makes it look like there's way more blood than there is. My leg has two cuts side by side about three to four inches long. It's not deep at all, but I'm sure it was from a barnacle, so I cleaned out really well. Now it just looks like this:

This morning, 12 of us had to remove Cassiopeia from the swim canal. Cassiopeia is the genus name of the upside down jellyfish that live in the shallows around here. They were named after a queen in Greek mythology. Cassiopeia was very beautiful and thought that she was more gorgeous than the sea nymphs. This really pissed off the nymphs, so they complained to Poseidon. He kept destroying the ships from her main city after that, and the oracle said Cassiopeia's daughter had to be sacrificed to a monster for the ships to be safe. Perseus, Zeus's mortal son, saved the daughter. As punishment to Cassiopeia, when she died Poseidon placed her in the stars on an upside down thrown. You've probably heard of the constellation. It's refered to in the horrible movie Serendipity with John Cusack. Lame.

Anyways, these jellies are mainly benthic. They live on the bottom, upside down and look like plants. They don't move a lot, but if you disturb them, they can release their stinging cells into the water column. An example of what happens is that one person swims down, and accidentally kicks a Cassiopeia. Then their buddy and everyone around them starts to get really itchy from the stinging cells that are all over the water. It sucks. Plus, some people are way more sensitive than others. We all put on wet suits for this fun project, but I had to borrow one since I don't own my own. I grabbed one that was a little too big, so it didn't block out enough water, and I got stung all down my chest, stomach and back. My neck got the worst of it. I had horrible, red welts all over, but now I just have red spots all over my neck and chest. The picture doesn't show them very well, but I thought you might be able to get an idea.

My neck still stings, but I didn't even stay in the water as long as other people. We ended up getting an estimated 2,000 jellies out of the swim canal. It was insane. We had to transport them to other areas by boat so they wouldn't die. I now hate Cassiopeia.

(These pictures are mainly for you, Mom. I know how you love to take pictures when people get hurt.)