Glennno said...

Gidday again,

I'm doing a fair bit of kiting in Mackay and it's rapidly approaching stinger season. Just wondering what sort of stinger suits you north Queesland kiters wear and recommend? From the stories I've heard it would spoil my day if I got zapped by one.

Cheers

can you find out what the ettiquette regarding boardies are re stinger suits ,over under or just stinger suit ?

Mr float said...

Glennno said...

Gidday again,

I'm doing a fair bit of kiting in Mackay and it's rapidly approaching stinger season. Just wondering what sort of stinger suits you north Queesland kiters wear and recommend? From the stories I've heard it would spoil my day if I got zapped by one.

Cheers

can you find out what the ettiquette regarding boardies are re stinger suits ,over under or just stinger suit ?

to the thumbs downers ,my apologies .I should have put a wink in ,ie my post was a joke

Thanks for the replies fellas,

No thumbs down here Mr Float.

I'll head to the local kite shop next time I get time off and have a look. Mesh better than lycra - but will it keep the bloody Irukandjis out?

I 'spose they can get you anywhere though - mouth, eyes, feet, up the leg of your boardies etc.

Cheers

Wear a long sleeved rashie top and get a pair of long stinger pants seperate, or sports skins long pants, doesn't look anywhere near as dorky, I wear a 2x1mm sleevless short john wetty over the top. Without boardies!!!!. But my mate just wears boardies over the pants with no wetty.
These are other options than your straight two tone dork suit.
But yes the main point is to do something, Ive seen kids with box jelly stings and suffering iragandji stings, thier screaming if painfull to the ears and it aint pretty!!!!

The word is that the stingers tend to head up the creeks or into deeper water when it blows, particularly with strong SE winds. We (Cairns locals) always wear the clobber to be on the safe side but I have only witnessed one small sting (experienced light pain but no medical attention) to a local kitesurfer in the past 18 years of windsurfing/kiting Yorkey's when it has been blowing.

Personally I would recommend wearing all the protection you can just to be on the safe side. You don't want to end up in serious trouble just because you didn't want to look a little dorky.

For those relying on stingers taking refuge in the creeks during windy weather, thought I would share the story of a few years ago here in Townsville...

A friend had come down from the tablelands to kite with me in Townsville, we had pumped up the kites and were carrying the gear to the beach when I noticed that he did not have a stinger suit on. He said "do you have to worry about stinger suits here?" (there are no stingers in the freshwater lakes on the tablelands). Given that we were all ready to kite and the wind was a solid 20knots it was so tempting to take the chance and just kite. We decided not to risk it and since a local I knew (Craig) was already kiting, I asked him to keep an eye on our gear while we went back to town. We raced into the nearest sports store a bought another stinger suit (if you think a stinger suit and board shorts looks gay on the beach, it's a lot gayer wearing one to the shops ).
Anyway, we get back to the beach, our gear was on the beach where we left it but the guy who was supposed to be watching it was gone. By then, some more kiters had arrived and I asked if they had seen Craig and was told, "he had to go in a hurry, got hit by a stinger". (Just for the record, he had a suit on but got hit in the hand while body dragging back to his board).

So, if you want to in kite in coastal North Queensland during stinger season without a suit on, go ahead. Hey, you might even get a free ride in a helicopter!

More seriously dude watch out as I got some around my arm years ago and the scars stayed for years let alone the oh my god that stung pain, and I'm a hairy bastard so pitty somebody without the extra fur protection.

Play hard, stay safe.

Glen

Hey Guys,

Out of curiosity, what does a stinger suit look like?

A couple of years ago I was paddling a surfski race in Durban, SA when I flicked clump of blue bottles onto my lap, managed to remove them after a while then carried on with the race as I was near the finish (in agony)

Got into shore and dropped to my knees in agony, with the heart pumping hard from paddling the poison got around alot quicker and it felt like somebody hit me in the nuts as hard as they could. After about 20 minutes in total agony I managed to stand up.

My brother got badly stung where it actually affected his heart to the extent that it actually started beating erratically and had to be rushed to hospital.

Cheers
Rich