The sun is piercing my body with heat. I can’t wait to jump into the salty navy blue water. It’s too hot to just sit on the boat. I feel as if I am going to have heat exhaustion. I walk to the edge of the boat and drop myself into the large body of water. With my arms sprawled like an eagles wings, I lay here floating in the glistening blue water. Drifting off into the summer sun, I suddenly feel sharp stings all across my arms and back. I start twitching as if I’m being electrocuted. I think I’ve gotten tangled in the rough seaweed circling me. My thoughts were wrong; I had been stung by a jellyfish... I can barely make my way back to the boat, the pain is too intense for me to handle. The salt water is seeping into my skin where I had been slashed by the long shocking tentacles. I am too weak to shout for help. The only assistance I have back to the boat is my flimsy life jacket. I look up and feel as if the boat keeps drifting further and further along with the current.

I slowly but surely arrive at the boat to find a cure for the sharp electric feeling shocks. As I arrive towards the boat, people start pointing out a huge jellyfish in the water near me. I hear my worried mom shouting “Watch out!!!” Little did she know I had already been stung... her warnings were two minutes too late... As I make my way up the ladder, I search for the captain. My skin is finally having a chance to breathe, but my stings feel worse than they did when they were being suffocated by the ocean salt water. I arrive on the boat, and my skin looks as if I’ve been in a sword battle and lost. I find my mom to show her my stings; she takes a huge worried sounding gasp as soon as she lays her eyes on my candy apple red back and arms. She gently touches my stings with a face expression of shock that I’m even alive. Of course though, she is tremendously over dramatic...

As soon as I contact the captain I show him my scarred back and arms. His reaction worries me, I haven’t had a chance to see my own back or arms yet, therefore I am nervous. At this point I don’t care what it would look like; I just need the pain to go away. The captain finally speaks,

“I’ll be right back, give me two minutes.” He said in his deep Hispanic voice. I hope he would hurry, just standing here was difficult. My back and arms feel like they are being stabbed by a fork vigorously. He finally comes back.

I notice he’s holding a bottle of meat tenderizer. I am highly confused, but in too much pain to even ask. He pulls me to the side and starts drowning me in the tenderizer, my stings sizzle with pain. A couple seconds later, the stings vanish. I feel as if I had never even been stung. It was a miracle! I’m so relieved the pain is gone. Standing there, I thank the captain, I start to head back outside, I turn the corner and see the captain grabbing a mid-size net made of plastic. I don’t know what he had planned on doing with it. What if he is going to try to catch and kill the jellyfish that had stung me? A couple minutes later I realize that he is. That just isn’t alright with me. I walk to side of the rocking boat; there are a handful of people standing there. I push to the front too see what exactly is going on. I see the captain with a smirk on his face while holding the net with the poor jellyfish trapped inside of it. The jellyfish just looked as if he were running out of life. The bright pinkish brown tentacles just dangling through the holes in the net. It was pathetic and it needed to be let go.
I march straight up to the captain and express to him that what he is doing is unjust. The people on this boat couldn’t care less about any ocean creature to live. The boat was only crowded with these selfish opulent adults that strutted across the boat with a $50 martini being held in there spray tanned hands. They all dissolved into laughter around the captain, the more laughs the more the captain felt superior and resented my opinion of letting the creature free. I end all snickering that second. I stood in front of the ill-mannered crowd.
“We are entering this ocean at our own risk, and that we must be aware of the dangers that come with using these creatures’ homes as a playground. I am the one who was put at risk and I’m not complaining at all.” I bluntly blurted out.

The people stand there looking at me as if I am a joke. I feel embarrassed and I don’t want to just make a fool of myself. I need to make an impression on these ruthless people. I yank the net out of the captains’ grimy hands and lower jellyfish back into the water. I feel wrong for doing so, but someone had to do it and it wasn’t going to be any of these mercenary people. The look of these undiplomatic adults’ faces is indescribable. I watch his helpless struggling self to swim away, and then the beautiful glowing creature gained strength once again. Sitting at the edge of the boat watching the large arresting creature fade off into the distance I feel satisfied and proud of myself for not allowing this hazardous yet winsome creature to be killed that moment. I feel gratification; I would have dreaded the rest of my trip knowing that because of me a faultless animal was killed. Nothing at all should be put in any harm if not deserved, and that’s the saddest part, most suffering in the world happens to the most unimpeachable that don’t deserve it one bit.