Fire Coral - Lessons Learned

[scubaguy]

Anyone have photos of each so I know for sure what they look like. I used to think I knew what the FC looked like, then a DM pointed out a little tiny corral that he maintained was FC, so now I don't know what ot looks like. My never break rule is never touch anything ever.

Good rule, have seen many nasty stings and Burns on Ocean Diving excursions, Bounced of the coral once in heavy current, fortunatly nothing more than a scrape but remeber your open water manual!
Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but bubbles and kill nothing but time!

and dont touch a Damn thing!

 

[diverrick]

OK now I understand why I can never tell what fire corral looked like. It comes in so many different sizes, colors and shapes. I will have to add a new rule "Never lick the coral"!

 

[divad]

isn't the "lesson" stay off the coral? Sorry about your plight but "longsleeves"
is a wrong solution. (Wrong like William Shatner making an album, i.e.,worse than bad)

 

[Zippsy]

evad, longsleeves is a GOOD part of the solution to stop it from happening again. Everyone knows not to touch anything and they usually ignore that rule until the get stung once. After that, stings and scrapes usually happen accidentally unless the diver is really stupid.

Before you say, you should never be so close to coral that you can accidentally get pushed into it by current, surge or another diver, you should try to photograph pygmy seahorses from 10 feet above the coral.

 

[divad]

Everyone knows not to touch anything and they usually ignore that rule until the get stung once.


And after that, they wear a long sleave shirt? Why the self contradiction.



I'm not arrogent enough to believe that I "need" a photo of a pygmy seahorse at the "accidental" expense of the surrounding coral.

 

[Zippsy]

lol. I guess you use binoculars during your dives. Actually, I'm not a photographer myself but I do like to see small critters and sometimes, just sometimes, they look better close up. That means near the coral - not 10 feet above it.

 

[divad]

lol. I guess you use binoculars during your dives. Actually, I'm not a photographer myself but I do like to see small critters and sometimes, just sometimes, they look better close up. That means near the coral - not 10 feet above it.

Why would you assume that everyone else needs to be 10' away from coral to keep from hitting it? Inches is fine for some. For some people 10' is way to close.

 

[Zippsy]

"inches is fine for some" and "10' is way too close" for others ... and no one from either of those groups is ever going to accidentally bump into coral for any reason?? I think you're dreaming. It's a nice dream, but a dream none the less. While I agree that everyone should stay as far away from the coral that they need to so that don't damage it (and that William Statner should never sing again), I am not naive enough to believe that touching it would never happen. That's why it is wise to have the proper protection, i.e. covering your arms and legs.

 

[Saturation]

Thanks for your note. I've tried dermatologists and wound centers, only to be turned away. The lesions look just like they always have and I can see with a magnifying glass little slivers and an occasional nemocysts (sp?) - with tweezers I can pull them out. I am confident that I HIT the coral rather hard and I am assuming I put them in pretty deep. But, I'm with you... it's time to quit playing around. My hope was to find someone local that had experience with fire coral stings.
Thank you again.

On passing, if you have a digital camera with good macro capabilities, post a picture of this 2 year old rash, if you want another on-line opinion.

I seriously doubt nematocysts [the stingers of jelly fish or fire coral] are still there but if you see something you can pull out, it would be something to help diagnose what that is. You cannot pull out nematocysts, they are so thin you can only really burst them, and if you don't burst them within a day of being stung the human body reacts to it and forms a little hard follicle around where the cyst should have been.

http://krupp.wcc.hawaii.edu/BIOL200/powerpnt/cnidaria/sld013.htm

An artist made this striking model:

http://www.mickelsenstudios.com/catalog/nematocyst.htm


Best of luck.

 

[diverbrian]

"inches is fine for some" and "10' is way too close" for others ... and no one from either of those groups is ever going to accidentally bump into coral for any reason?? I think you're dreaming. It's a nice dream, but a dream none the less. While I agree that everyone should stay as far away from the coral that they need to so that don't damage it (and that William Statner should never sing again), I am not naive enough to believe that touching it would never happen. That's why it is wise to have the proper protection, i.e. covering your arms and legs.

The long sleeves are a solution to jellyfish as well. When I was in Provo, those things wanted to hang out at 15 to 20 feet behind the boat. Safety stops could be an adventure on that trip, LOL!

As to the coral issue, I had a boss (not a diver) who was snorkeling in Hawaii. He took a surge or wave that took him to the coral. While it wasn't FC (for that he is grateful), it took several stitches to close the cuts. I also have a dive buddy in FL. She is an excellent diver and primarily does beach dives. For her beach dives, twenty-five foot is a deep dive as she likes dives in the length of two hours. The surf there was bad enough to make me seasick wading in. Tell me that it isn't possible to accidently brush the coral in those conditions.

On my few warm water dives, I wear a full 3mm jumpsuit for the warmth (I chill easily in spite of the reputation of us crazy drysuit divers.) AND the protection from accidents. Just my 2 psi off of my doubles. Take it or leave it as you please.