I was on a trip to God's Pocket Marine Provincial Park when our captain, Sean, dropped us at The Grotto for our checkout dive. The site is well known for frequent sightings of ocean sunfish (Mola mola), so, like everyone else on the boat, I spent the dive hoping to find one.
Unfortunately, I didn't see a mola, but I did come across a beautiful sea nettle drifting gracefully through the water column. These elegant jellyfish are uncommon around Vancouver, where I did most of my diving, but are much more abundant farther south, particularly around Monterey Bay, where they sometimes form spectacular blooms. I photographed the jelly against the emerald-green water, happy with a few simple portraits. It wasn't until I reviewed the images later that I noticed a tiny cross jelly floating quietly beside the sea nettle's enormous tentacles. Somehow, the little hitchhiker had gone completely unnoticed underwater.
That year, Sean mentioned seeing unusually large numbers of sea nettles in the channels, along with frequent reports of ocean sunfish from divers. It made me wonder whether the two were connected. Since jellyfish are one of the mola's favourite food sources, perhaps their appearances were no coincidence after all.
