Portuguese man of war found at Peniche beach

One of the first news of the day was the appearance and supposed attack of a blue bottle, a kind of jellyfish, over 2 children, at Peniche, a beach located in central Portugal. The blue bottle (Physalia physalis) is also known as Portuguese man of war (Caravela Portuguesa), due to the shape similarities with the triangular sails of this ship. It is called blue bottle because it is coloured with a translucent blue.
It is strange that it appears around here. Peniche's seawater is not particularly warm to attract these marine invertebrates. One of the lifeguards of the area said it was the fifth he found in the last 2 years… Something is changing, it seems.
The first time I saw a blue bottle was at Wollongong city beach, in February 2005. Me and my English friend wanted to have a swim after work; it was 4 pm when we arrived at the beach and when we got there, hundreds of blue bottles were laying on the sand, breathing slowly and waiting for the tide to rise again and take them back to the ocean. It was a scary scenario… but we went for a swim anyway, thinking that, since many blue bottles were on the sand, less would be in the ocean. It was a 3 minutes swim… the risk of being stung haunted us.
In the following months, I had other encounters with blue bottles, the funniest one when I went for a swim at 7 am on the natural pool; the tide was high and a couple of blue bottles decided to cross over the stone wall of the pool (which separated it from the sea) to swim with me… but I just ran off. Sorry mates, you’re just too dangerous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man_o'_War