Attack of the Moon Jellys!!!

[ricki]

Thick rafts of moon jellys drifting shoreward have been appearing at times for some years. Aurelia aurita is fairly common off SE Florida.
It typically is a slow mover stroking along through the water column. I came into large quantities of moon jellys off the shore today
and decided to grab some photos with my GoPro HD in Eye of Mine corrective UW housing.



I put the camera on the bottom using the intervelometer setting for some glide by shots. The girls wanted to go to the beach,
so I headed off Deerfield to see what might show up.



I was surprised to motor through tons of these for almost two hours and only striking one by accident. I tried to move one into
place for a shot using the dive scooter. I've picked plenty up over the years with minimal stinging. This time perhaps because I
was moving pretty fast, a shower of invisible nematocysts flooded out behind the jelly and into my face. Smarted for a few minutes,
learned something new.




I came into a school of fish being herded by jack and tarpon. Time for some more bottom based photograhpy.



I saw about four or five of these dinky turtles.






Delicate and beautiful, loggerhead turtles consume these guys. It is likely part of the reason they eat plastic bags too causing
problems. Keep the trash in the boat in short and pick it up when you see it.








Moon jelly population explosions are causing concerns about oxygen depletion, adding to the global carbon atmospheric debt and more
stated to be related to climate change and over nutrified surface runoff. I can recall massive moon jelly blooms in the early 1970s
before common awareness of climate change.



Folks sometimes wonder what I am talking about in describing using the Apollo dive scooter in sit on top mode. This post should
clear that up. It is a very efficient and fun way to use it.



The moon jellys usually don't sting that much unless you have an allergic reaction or they hit thin skin. I just recalled making a deep free dive
for me, 120 ft. on the wreck of the Duane off Key Largo almost 20 years ago. I wasn't using a dive scooter at the time just fins. There
was a strong current carrying me UW along about 2/3rds of it. I surfaced was breathing it off with my eyes closed and caught a moon jelly
in the face, ouch. Now that hurt for about 20 minutes but vanished after.








The masses of moon jellys had yet to drift onshore and seemed to be concentrating over the inner reefs.





I need to throw up a video clip from the session, stay tuned.

.

[ricki]

A short GoPro video clip of this scooter free diving session with a bunch of jellyfish, tarpon, a turtle and some nice fish schools off Deerfield Beach, FL.