Location: Secret location, Baranoff Island, southeast Alaska
We have been seeing returning and spawning salmon everywhere!!! Salmon jumping out of the water as we cruise by. Salmon fry schooling in thick black clouds. Salmon swimming under the kayaks and salmon under the inflatable during shoreline tours. So I decided to launch our divers in a salmon stream today and they had a great time with thousands of salmon circling around in a deep-water pool a couple of hundred feet up the stream. Guests reported seeing all the stuff that I had briefed them about from colour changes – male salmon can change from silver to red and black!! – to the development of big humps in their backs and elongated and protruding and hooked snouts to actually seeing a male and female salmon nesting and laying and fertilizing eggs in their nest. Very cool stuff. Also did our last jellyfish dive of the season today and discovered something very interesting… We have observed that the aggregating moon jellies swim up, down or even sideways.. It’s very confusing.. 2 of our divers decided to do something different and dropped down to 45 feet. To their surprise, they found themselves in moderate current going the opposite way to the current on the surface AND surrounded by moon jellies all swimming the same direction downcurrent. We had no idea these jellies were here. They drifted with the jellyfish for a while and eventually found themselves in a place with jellies swimming in all directions. The divers surfaced and – you guessed it – found themselves in the middle of a jellyfish smudge. Not sure what to make of this but am wondering if the counter-current at depth provides the jellies with a means to navigate around the inlet and congregate as required?? Interesting stuff. Captain Mike
Weather: Clear, calm, beautiful, air temperture low 70’s..
Water: Water temperature 46F, 10 f- 15 oot visibility in the shallows, 40 foot visibility deeper down..
Jellyfish and spawning salmon
