Hey guys, I got stung or bitten by something last night, about a half hour before sunset, at Seacrest Beach. It was about 1/4 or 1/8 of an inch long, and sand-colored. I went to brush away a bunch of sand off my son's shoulders as we were leaving the beach and this bugger was apparently in that sand, and bit me -- hard!

It hurt immediately and I was too busy getting it off me to examine it. First I had a red dot from the bite, and within a few minutes I had a welt the size of a dime. The welt spread and the bite throbbed all night, even with Advil and hydrocortisone cream. Today about a 3-inch radius around the bite is slightly red and swollen and feels like a bad bruise.

I'm thinking it might have been a venomous sting, but it wasn't a hornet or wasp or yellowjacket and it did not look like what I remember of yellow flies (also, if anything the wind was coming from the south not north).

I thought at first it was a sand flea or no-see-um but it appears from my research that those bites are small, red and itchy. This does not itch at all, it is just painful.

Anyway, I'm hoping to figure out what it is so I can avoid it! I guess this was a good reminder to use repellant!