I returned to Noosa in Queensland, Australia for Christmas with my sister and mother. While there I walked from the southern end of Noosa National Park along the coastal track to Alexandria Bay where I had a swim with the jellyfish and enjoyed the relative solitude of a beautiful beach on the Pacific Ocean.

Northern end of Sunshine Beach

The coastal track leads from Sunshine Beach across a couple of small headlands to Alexandria Bay:

Looking north across Alexandria Bay

Its an unofficial nudist beach. The official one is over the next headland to the north,

There were quite a number of these large brown jellyfish washed up on the beach. I haven’t been able to identify them, and not sure if they differ from the blue blubber jellyfish in the following photo, because they have eaten brown algae.

“Brown” jellyfish (or maybe a blue blubber jellyfish that has not eaten lately?)

The blue blubber jellyfish gets its name from the blue-green algae that it eats, and that give it the blue colour.

Blue blubber jellyfish

Huge numbers of blue bottles were washing up also.

Blue bottles are common on Australian beaches and are a small cousin of the Portuguese Man-O-War. They are siphonophores and are actually a colony of several individuals known as “persons”. They have an irritating sting. I met a person on the beach who claimed to be Australian, but did not know what they were and was afraid to go in the water. I was suspicious that an Australian of middle age could exist who did not know about blue bottles.

You can see them in this wave. I told the frightened “Australian” that they were not a big deal, just added a certain “zing” to your surfing experience.

Blue bottles in the surf

This is an upside down “big brown”. It was still alive, and the circular structure pulsed when I touched it.

This may be a blue blubber. The dark spots are concentrations of the algae it has eaten.

Heading back south after a jellyful swim.

Coastal bushland along the track