On a night out during the winter of 2014 in Dubai, my friends and I decided to visit a beach and go out for a short paddle on the Persian Gulf. We got two boats into the water, and paddled relatively far away from the shore.

As is usually the case in these stories,we all started messing around. We tried to knock each other out of the boat with paddles, and rocked the rails to bring water in over the gunwales. Luckily for me, the boat which inevitably ended up tipping was not the one I was seated in. The capsized crew however, did not fare so well. One of my friends actually got stung by a jellyfish in the commotion.

After that, we hurriedly paddled the boats back to shore. The seriousness of the situation quickly dissolved into hilarity when we remembered that you are supposed to pee on jellyfish stings to stop them from burning. My friend that got strung was not impressed.