It was summer 2022, and we were in an Airbnb in Greece. My entire family was there, and my aunt had brought paddleboards since our house was right on the beach. Plus, we were there for 6 days, meaning we would need to do something except just swimming. I had been looking forward to coming here since the house looked nice and my cousins were here, and I had not seen them in years.  
We did not bring out the paddleboards until the third day when we had gotten bored of swimming and hanging out at home did not seem fun anymore. Although we had two paddleboards, all three of us decided to go on one. Since nobody was willing to go on their own. The shore was down a small hill, so we pulled the boards down and put them on the water.  
“Make sure you don’t go too far since this is a new place, and you aren’t going to be bringing your phones,” my grandpa warned us.  
We nodded, said bye to him, and paddled away. We had two paddles for us, and since my youngest cousin (Daniela) refused to do it. Me and Jasmina (the oldest) were stuck paddling. I didn’t mind because I didn’t just want to sit there and this way, I could control where we went. We started going straight forward, which was hard because one paddle was two-sided, and the other was one-sided. This means every time we were going slightly to the right, I had to move the paddle over everyone's head so that the paddle was on the opposite side. We paddled for about 20 minutes when Daniela told us she saw something in the water.  
“Chill it’s probably a plastic bag or something,” I told her.  
Regardless, we paddled towards it, just to get her to shut up. But once we got closer, I saw it was an orange-ish color and had purple dots all over the bottom, in the shape of a plastic bag. Nobody said anything but we all knew what it was- A jellyfish! I looked at Jasmina and she looked like she’d just seen a ghost.  
“PADDLE AWAY FROM IT WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Daniela yelled.  
“It’s like seven feet away from us,” I told her.  
I kept telling myself not to worry since we were so far away, and it looked pathetic enough not to hurt a fly. But still, I paddled away as fast as I could.  
As we were paddling away from it, we went over about 20 more jellyfish. Some looked the same, and others were clear and in the shape of a bottle. Now I was freaking out, the weight of all three of us wasn’t helping either since half the board was in the water. There had been at least five times when a jellyfish got halfway on our board but slipped off.  
“Can we try to find a place without jellyfish, I want to swim,” Jasmina said. 
We both nodded at her, but it was easier said than done. I hadn’t seen an area without jellyfish in over 10 minutes. After a while, Daniela spoke up and said, “Guys I think we can go for a swim now; I haven't seen a single jellyfish in like 10 minutes.”  
As soon as she said this, we all jumped in, making sure to hold onto the paddleboard to ensure it does not float away. The water was the perfect temperature, and although it was very clear, it was still impossible to see the bottom seeing as we were about a mile from shore.   
I was swimming when suddenly, I felt something brush past my right leg. I screamed and moved my leg, but nothing was hurting, so I assumed it was a piece of trash or seaweed and started swimming toward the paddleboard. That’s when I felt a horrible stinging on that same leg, it felt as if someone was stabbing my leg with a million small knives, and I thought I was going to pass out. My heart was beating like crazy. I was in the middle of the sea, and the jellyfish could have been poisonous or deadly. I quickly swam to the paddleboard, and my eyes were blurry since I was bawling, and had a bunch of salt water in them. I didn’t want to die in the middle of the sea, from a jellyfish. I was sitting on the paddleboard holding my leg and crying when I saw my cousins quickly swim to me, screaming.  
“OH MY GOSH ARE YOU OKAY?” Daniela yelled while getting on the paddleboard. 
I told them I was surely going to die, and that they should leave me here, since dying from a jellyfish burn is extremely embarrassing.  
“I don’t think we have another choice,” Jasmina said looking around frantically. 
We both just looked at her, I couldn't believe I needed to tell her I wasn’t being serious.  
“I mean none of us are getting back,” she added after seeing our looks. 
None of us knew what to say, so again we just looked at her. She realized that we didn’t know what she was talking about and pointed towards the shore, it was some random beach I had never seen in my life. I looked all over the stretch of beaches and none of them looked familiar. At this point I was still crying about the burn and the realization that we were lost certainly didn’t make anything better. I was full-on bawling and freaking out, we had also been in the sun for hours, so every part of my body burnt, and none of us knew what to do next. It’s not like we knew the address of the place we were staying at, and none of us had any numbers memorized, so going to the shore wouldn’t do us any good. So we were stuck in the sun, in the middle of the sea, burnt in many ways and places, and were completely lost. Even Jasmina, who was usually calm, was freaking out.  
“HOW HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO WHERE WE’RE GOING?!” Jasmina started yelling, we told her it was her job too, and she just got angrier at this, which got the rest of us mad. We just sat there for a few minutes arguing, half crying half yelling, until we saw Daniela’s face completely change, and she started staring at a building. I asked her what she was looking at and she pointed to a restaurant.  
“Didn't we eat there last night?” Daniela asked us.  
I nodded and realized we walked there, so we all knew the way, and it would obviously be the same direction by water. I felt like a weight had been lifted off me, while my leg was still burning like crazy, I ignored it and grabbed a paddle and headed towards the direction of the restaurant quickly. If I spent another five minutes out there, I knew I would go insane. After paddling with no breaks for 10 minutes, I saw the house and almost jumped off the paddle to swim there, since anything would have been faster than that board, I stopped myself from jumping because I knew there were around 50 jellyfish here. We got to the house, and I knew I was never going to get on a paddleboard again, or even swim at that beach.