I'll start this off with a direct quote from my IM convo with a friend of mine.
Well I live in Cali right, and I've been going to the beach for fucking years, almost my whole life. I live about 2 and a half hours away from the great big pacific ocean. And every time I've been there I'd spend all the time in the water, and this one trip I was with my best chick Friend and we were swimming around and I felt something keep brushing against my foot and I'm like in water that's about throat high which is pretty deep considering I'm like 5'7. So I'm like, "Keener, I'm freaking out, I feel like something is touching me. So We decide to swim back as fast as we can. And my leg is cramping because it's hard work swimming against the waves that push you towards the shore and then back out into the ocean. And Suddenly I feel something whip around my ankle, and I freak out, and then it feels like something fucking stabbed me in my foot. And I'm like... I'm fucking imagining this but my foot hurts really bad, and so I'm like Keener we have to get out right now. I think... And I don't want to say I think something bit me because I don't want to look stupid if nothing did, but we get out of the water and my foot is bleeding but not bad, but all the veins are swollen in my foot. and it's turning a hideous shade of red...
I later found out there are fucking sting rays in the water and you have to be careful.
I've been a little afraid to go in since.