Vagabond Tales: Snorkeling with irukandji, one of the deadliest animals on Earth

“This guy over here has been tagged three times mate.”

The dive instructor on our Whitsunday Islands cruise peels off his neoprene gloves and shows us a slight scar located just above the knuckle of his right thumb.

“Luckily every time they got me it was in the hand or the foot”, he claims. “If they’d gotten me on the bloody torso I’d be a gonner.”

As someone who has worked on charter boats for a number of years, I know that telling tall tales to tourists just comes with the job. True story or not, I know that the threat is real nonetheless. A dreamy island chain set at the southern tip of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the Whitsunday Islands from November through April are home to one of the world’s deadliest creatures: the irukandji jellyfish.

Similar to a box jellyfish, the tiny irukandji measure only 2.5 centimeters across and have tentacles that pack more venom than the combined amount of 100 cobras. Although actual irukandji fatalities are rare, one Australian teen actually reported he wishes he were dead during a recent irukandji attack.

For this very reason many towns and resorts on the Queensland coast have massive salt water swimming lagoons or fresh pools which serve as refreshing watering holes (and nighttime love hideouts for inebriated backpackers) during the annual irukandji season.

Yet, for some reason, I decided it was still a good idea to go snorkeling. In the ocean. In the Whitsunday Islands. In the peak of irukandji season.

A bit sketchy? Yes. But is it really that dangerous? Not really. Although the safest way to keep from being stung by a massively poisonous jellyfish is to abstain from the ocean completely, for those still harboring fantasies of gliding above a giant purple clam or catching a rare sighting of a giant Napoleon wrasse, the easiest thing thing to do is to simply don a stinger suit.

Wait. A stinger suit? What’s a stinger suit?Basically, a stinger suit is your worst fashion nightmare on land, and your best possible protection when you’re in the Northern Australia waters. A one piece lycra unitard that’s as sexy as it is form-fitting, a stinger suit essentially covers you from head to toe and prevents any rogue irukandji tentacles from brushing alongside and sending you on an impromptu helicopter ride.

That being said, the only thing more disconcerting than catching a glimpse of yourself in a stinger suit is catching an actual glimpse of an irukandji itself.

As I dove off of the crowded catamaran, snorkel gear in hand, the water was slightly cool for mid-April. After a sun drenched boat ride out to the reef from nearby Airlie Beach, I finally was immersed in the calming silence of the sea. Free diving beneath a grotto of human legs to a more tranquil world of vibrant corals and mutant looking parrotfish, the only sounds were the gentle crackling of reef fish feeding on coral heads and the occasional drone of a distant boat motor shuttling tourists from the beach to the reef and eventually the bar.

For the first time in a while, I finally was alone.

Noticing one of his boat passengers languishing gently in a sand channel between the reef, one of the instructors from the boat dove the four meters down to the sea floor to pay a casual visit to my hidden aquatic chamber.

Not more than two seconds after reaching the bottom, however, his eyes excitedly bulged and appeared to double in size as seen through the fog of his mask. Slowly, he raised a focused finger at something apparently located behind me.

For anyone who hasn’t spent much time underwater, regardless of how comfortable you are in the ocean, you never, ever, want to see someone with wide eyes pointing directly behind you. Music starts playing, drums start thumping, and you can almost feel the teeth sinking into the nape of your neck.

Fully expecting to see a toothy visitor, I instead saw…well…nothing. There was nothing there at all. The instructor was actually just pointing at the open blue.

Then, just as my lungs were starting to yearn for another shot of oxygen, the slightest flicker of motion and a narrowing of his pointing drew my attention to a miniscule speck drifting lazily in the sea.

According to our instructor–who would late re-confirm with me back on board–the drifting life form in front of us was none other than the feared and fabled irukandji, the 100 cobra knockout, and the most remarkably passive predator I had ever seen in my life.

For as surreal an experience as floating amidst the reefs of Australia already is, it’s amplified tenfold by staring directly into the face of a creature the size of your fingernail that could actually kill you right there. Like a mesmerizing orb, for some unknown reason you simply want to reach out and touch it, but the stinger suit says no.

“Captain, you said there was a bar on board right?”

I’d just looked death in it’s microscopic Australian eye, and somehow escaped unscathed. It was time for a drink, a pause, a moment of reflection, and a toast to a gentle reminder that even the smallest of creatures on the planet can still make a world of difference.

Want more stories? Read the rest of the Vagabond Tales here

Stinger suit photo: Flickr; eyeintim

Rock of Ages ‘Vagabond’ luggage tags


Luggage tags normally serve two purposes, but the new Vagabond luggage tags by Rock of Ages serve a third! Most tags help you identify your bag on the carousel and serve as a layer of security in case your bag is ever lost. Rock of Ages’ tags add something no bag tag has achieved before: sass.

As the proud owner of a black Briggs & Riley rollerboard, I can totally see the virtue in adorning my suitcase with a tag like the above. Alternatively, you can go for more colorful options bearing statements like “See You Later Alligator,” “Go in Peace” and “Good Karma – A Bag That Goes Around Comes Around.” Check out the gallery below for the full collection. It’s up to you how much of your personal sass you want to display on your baggage.

These cute tags are pure leather and feature goldtone hardware and a concealed identity tag. The Vagabond tags are available from roapress.com for $30 apiece. Did someone just say “stocking stuffer” or did it just echo so loudly in my head that I thought that someone said it?
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South by Southeast: New directions in Southeast Asia

What is it about Southeast Asia that so captivates our attention? For many Westerners, Southeast Asia has attained an identity of exoticism and escape, enchanting travelers as a destination “off the map” of global tourism. It’s a myth readily fed by popular culture. From Graham Greene’s The Quiet American to Alex Garland’s The Beach we’re painted a picture of a magical world, unsullied by the realities of real life – and we’ve taken the bait, hook, line and sinker.

Southeast Asia, we’re told, is where we’ll go to forge new identities. We’ll quit our jobs back home, find a bungalow on the beach in Thailand, and live out our days drinking 25-cent beers, sunning ourselves under a palm tree. Our problems back home? Distant memory. For anyone struggling with the vagaries of career and post-collegiate life, it’s a powerful fantasy, bandied about during late-night drinking sessions or anytime life becomes “too much of a drag.”

But what’s it really like to travel through Southeast Asia, circa 2009? Does our fantasy match the reality? Though plenty is left to explore, the romanticized destination of deserted beaches and bumpy bus rides is experiencing a dramatic shift, further connecting itself to global tourism and the world economy. Luxury boutiques dot the streets of “communist” Vietnam. Thousands of travelers show up for Full Moon Parties on the beaches of Koh Pha Ngan. Even Lonely Planet’s hugely popular Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, the defacto “bible” for independent travelers, is nearly 25 years old and 14 Editions in print. How does the region today look after this huge influx of new money and visitors?

It was these very questions that had me thinking. Was there still adventure to be found in Southeast Asia? And how did it match with the visions of escape and personal reinvention I had in my mind? Encouraged by books like Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding, I left behind my full-time job in New York and created a plan. I would spend the next few months traveling through the region. After a stopover in Seoul, I head to Bangkok and then on to wherever luck will have me. Not only is it a chance to reinvent the direction of my own life, it’s also an opportunity to observe the rapidly changing direction of this fascinating destination.

Over the next few months, I encourage you to join me as I investigate Southeast Asia with a fresh eye. We’ll return to familiar stops on the “Southeast Asia tourist trail” to survey the terrain, and introduce you to places you never knew existed. We’ll also be taking a closer look at the art of long term travel, and some of the rewards and challenges encountered along the way. We hope through our mistakes and successes you’ll have a chance to truly understand what traveling through Southeast Asia is all about. Ready to go? Let’s chart a course, South by Southeast…

You can read future posts from Gadling’s travels “South by Southeast” through Asia: HERE.

Hippie Masala – the travelers that never went home

Have you ever experienced a moment while you were traveling where you decided you wanted to stay (permanently)? Maybe it was particularly idyllic day lazing at the beach. A revelatory meal. A vista of a gorgeous sunset or a chance encounter with some friendly locals. No matter how amazing the experience, we all end up coming home eventually. Why is that? Perhaps its because at heart we still find a line between reality and fantasy – a realization that actually living in your dream vacation spot would involve many of the same trivialities and hardships you experience in your life at home.

The traveler featured in the clip above, from a movie called Hippie Masala, faced a similar dilemma. Hippie Masala, a documentary produced in 2007, follows the current lives of several aging hippies who made their way to India in the 60’s and 70’s in search of spiritual fulfillment, the allure of drugs and the chance to live a supposedly “simpler” life. While many members of their generation took similar short trips to the east, the vast majority eventually returned to their Western lives after weeks or months. This was not the case for a determined few, who set about creating a new life for themselves among their adopted culture.

How are we to interpret these stories? It’s easy enough to write off Hippie Masala as a cautionary tale about a bunch of crusty old hippies who tripped and fell on their idealism. But perhaps there’s something larger at work – an impulse to “leave it all behind” that we’ve all considered acting on but never brought to fruition. You can watch the documentary for free, in its entirety on the SnagFilms website and decide for yourself.

[Via Metafilter]