The sea nettles are thick on Thanksgiving!

[Peter_C]

I chopped up thousands of them so the sea gulls and star fish could eat. It will be a jelly fish feast!

By the BW they were tiny. At the mating amtracks they were mixed sizes. Shale island, tiny and so thick we couldn't see descending through them. My anchor line is brown with tentacles on it from Erics Pinnacle. We didn't dive there after putting our masks on and looking overboard. Not enough jellies to even mention off the aquarium. We all escaped without a single sting.

 

[zf2nt]

This business of the jellies really is all perception. Friday I listened to one after another diver complain about how awful the nettles were at Breakwater. One DM even had his tour-ees come screaming out of the water after they ran into the swarm and got stung. But then late in the day I bumped into Chuck Davis, one of the most awesome divers and photographers I know, and Chuck was absolutely ecstatic about the swarm at Breakwater. He took his camera down on the bottom and looked up through the swarm...said he got some fantastic photos. There was as much excitement in his voice as the newest diver at Breakwater, seeing it all for the first time.

 

[dougchartier]

Yikes! They have been verminous lately! I'm just glad they aren't box jellies!

Just did a dive at Breakwater at 4PM. Thinking that the vis would be spectacular due to the wave models, I eagerly entered the water only to immediately swim into an absolute swarm of small 4 inch sea nettles dotted randomly with moon jellies. It was so thick it turned the color of the water into a dull brown and made everything very, very dim. And visibility by itself actually wasn't all that great. Earlier in the year I encountered swarms of large foot wide nettles, but I guess they just spawned? Now there are thousands. The sea floor was littered with dead and dying nettles as well. Not a single sign of a mola mola. I put my hand up to protect the small patch of lips and chin exposed by my hood, and of course in so doing I smacked a nettle right into my face. Ooooooo.... spicy.

Swam around for an hour and a half. The students over the weekend are going to have fun