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A Twitter user has captured a photo of an armada of bluebottles in a popular children’s pool on Bondi Beach that is sure to send a shiver down the spine of every parent.
The picture was taken this week at North Bondi children’s pool as bluebottles swarmed Sydney’s beaches.
Hundreds of the unwanted visitors have been blown into the waters across Sydney’s shoreline this week.
“Normally, bluebottles come in with a nor‘easter and that started blowing overnight,” a Surf Life Saving NSW spokesman told NCA NewsWire.
“It is blowing at 20 knots and that is a very strong wind. Bluebottles are turning up on our beaches already.
“I’d be very surprised if they weren’t turning up on a lot of beaches throughout NSW with this nor‘easter blowing from Coffs all the way down to far south coast down to places like Bega (and nearby beaches including Merimbula and Tura Beach).”
Isaac Irvin’s picture of the North Bondi pool has been liked and retweeted hundreds of times.
“Australia! If the waves don’t get you, the bluebottles will,” he wrote.
Sky News host Laura Jayes retweeted the image saying it was a “kids’ pool of nightmares”.
The Australian Museum website says bluebottles are at the mercy of the wind, sometimes blowing into shallow waters and washing up onto beaches.
“On the eastern coast of Australia, it is the NE winds and warmer currents that bring them and other organisms that make up the armada or fleets of blue-coloured floating colonial cnidarians and their predators to beaches on the incoming tides,” the Australian Museum writes.
University of NSW marine ecology professor Emma Johnston also posted a pic of a washed-up bluebottle on Friday.
“Still enough of these freshly beached beauties to make me think twice about a swim,” she tweeted.
Surf Life Saving NSW urged beachgoers to exercise caution this weekend with regards to marine stingers and to download the Beachsafe app.
It provides information on beach safety including bluebottle stings.
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