Sea Lice Aren’t Lice at All

By Pascal Geraghty on July 27, 2016 in Other

With the constant threat of ‘winter is coming’ hanging over our heads, my wife, baby daughter and I stole away last week to an undisclosed paradisiacal South Pacific location to stockpile vitamin D. Hot sun, bath-like water, fun waves, sun-cream, snorkels, sand cays, coral, boardies, bikinis and boats were all daily staples.

It’s with a tinge of guilt that I recount this as my fellow Sydney-siders freeze their pale rings off. However, nothing in this world is perfect. There is always a down side to a tropical holiday.

This time around it was the sea lice. They were out in force and looking to party. My regular forays into the ocean were met enthusiastically by these microscopic menaces, which proceeded to treat my body like a cruise ship buffet. Sweet, white, tender Aussie flesh, albeit a bit hairy, is clearly a delicacy in the region.

When I was a boy the consensus was that nobody knew for sure what sea lice actually were. All I knew was that they delighted particularly in savaging me and that excruciatingly itchy red ‘bites’ would erupt a day or two later and last anywhere up to a week. It’s now known, however, that the term ‘sea lice’ is actually a misnomer, and that those responsible are in fact not puny, peckish, pugnacious parasites as the name would suggest. Rather, I was simply coming into contact with either tiny, transparent jellyfish species or stinger larvae armed with the same stinging cells (nematocysts) as their parents.

So to be fair, my claims that I’d been devoured degustation-style during our recent holiday, on top of being overly dramatic and exaggerated, are totally wrong. A more accurate anecdote involves me having the misfortune of brushing up against an abundance of these critters, which, like me, were minding their own business and going for a swim, then perhaps stung me by accident. For all I know they may have been profusely apologetic at the time. This I’ll never know.

Some poor sods are highly susceptible, even allergic, to their stings – me, for example. Others, meanwhile, appear to be immune to their caresses – my wife, for example. Funnily enough, we both get zapped the same way in the water, though she experiences no further discomfort while I’m left dragging bread knives and garlic graters across my enflamed skin in search of desperate relief.

At the end of the day, what sea lice are or are not is all just academic to me, unfortunately. Whether I’m being hunted or we’re like passing ships in the night I am convinced that if there’s a sea louse within a kilometre radius of me, chances are we will become acquainted, I will get touched up (quite possibly in a delicate area) and I will be left to rue the brief encounter for days afterwards. It’s nothing personal, I just wish they’d keep their grubby tentacles to themselves and leave me alone.