Storming the beaches of Malta

An article by Charles Flores about this summer's jellyfish invasion has caught the attention of David Loewinger, a student dentist blogging from Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. In his article, Flores insists that the authorities can do more to keep the jellyfish away from Maltese beaches. From The Jellyfish, my dentist and I:

Is it not symptomatic of this nation, caught as it is in its present lethargic and laissez faire frame of mind, that while others find no difficulty in inventing unique ways and means to keep the big, deadly shark away from their popular beaches and bays, we have let the innocent-looking, squidgy, little jellyfish terrify our swimmers and holiday-makers for most of this summer?

It really has been a summer when the innocent pleasure of swimming has been reduced to a catch-me-if-you-can game with the invading jellyfish. “We have such beautiful water,” one irate acquaintance bellowed the other day, “and yet most of us seem afraid to go into it. It has never been like this.”..

The same jellyfish problem has occurred in most of the popular beaches in Malta and Gozo this summer; it is a phenomenon that has badly hit the Mediterranean, a long-suffering, moribund sea for too long subjected to national and international abuse. On one particularly bad day, it was maintained that the endless rows of jellyfish came in at eighteen feet deep. The spectacle of children netting them up in their multitudes and watching them dry out and shrivel to death on the beach was a familiar piece of entertainment for frustrated swimmers who quite understandably refused to go into the sea.

Diving amongst jellyfish - Wired Temples