Dive #192 - Rich Torkington's Dive Log

I have not found identifying information on this cool-looking lavender jellyfish.
Videograph by Rich Torkington in BVI 2004

Dive Journal: We take the dinghy around the northern edge of Guana this morning, technically on the Atlantic Ocean side, to a site called Time Square. The visibility is a bit murky, certainly worse than any of our previous dives here.

The dive topology, however, is very interesting – lots of near vertical rock walls and V-shaped canyons. We enjoy a huge lobster and a number of juvenile and adult spotted drums, and a few white spotted filefish.

We come across a jellyfish I’ve never seen, a softball-sized lavender-colored ball with streaming tentacles. Abie gives us the “don’t touch” sign, but we study it for quite a while. It seems like quite a poor swimmer, this one tumbling constantly in the mild surge.

We lose Abie at one point, and we learn later that she spied and swam after a jewfish. Meanwhile we spot a turtle that also makes a hasty exit. We eventually swim into a big V-shaped grotto that ends in a shallow cave. The surge picks up here and it’s a neat tour. We eventually swim around a little further east and then north, away from the island, for our exit.

Nearing the surface, we see hundreds of moon jellies pulsing around in the top 10 feet of water. Each of us slowly ascends through them, with some divers petting them along the way. On the surface we find it downpouring. Ajay is having some delay in vectoring the boat over to us, so we float on the surface for an enchanting five minutes or so. A great feeling, just relaxing in the downpour with friends out on the ocean surface, surrounded by jellyfish.

Ajay is a laugh when he shows up, clad in a black garbage bag. Bad day to be on bubble patrol.