into... swimming through salpas and purple jellyfish

A single day trip to the sea. While approaching the beach, a friend of mine observed that the few people at the shore, were just sunbathing and not even one person swimming. Probably the beach is full of jellyfish swarms. On the last weeks of spring, shores are common to be infested with jellyfish and the most dangerous ones are the purple jellyfish, but also that period of time salpas appears. Salpas aint jellyfish and as I mentioned in a previous video "Sea Grape Soup", salpas may look similar to jellyfish, but in fact they are chordates, animals with dorsal nerve cords and totally harmless to humans. However, purple jellyfish is the most venomous and abundant jellyfish of the Mediterranean Sea.
My suggestion is, when you don't know the shore you're about to swim, or not sure about situations like infested jellyfish beaches, it's better to dive with a snorkeling mask to check out the submarine topography, and that's what i did in this video.
In our luck, there were mostly swarms of salpas, which I touched with my hands just to show they are harmless, but far away from the coast, I saw some purple jellyfish, mostly at the bottom of the sea. I recorded them making some silly approaches to get a closer shot, but their tentacles ain't for playing around them. The sea isn't stable to have a secure distance.
Researchers says mushroom corals and those of the genus Heteropsammia are known to feed on salps during blooms, but also sea turtles, birds and shellfish. This video shows a sea anemone prey on a salp.
One last thing to mention is that the dimness on some parts of the video is from the contrast of the water at the surface been much warmer, and from the level of 1 meter deep till the bottom, it get's much colder. So when a diver or swimmer erupts that thin line, it makes the surrounding to look blurred. That's all for now, n:joy...
shooted : 31 May 2024
chopped : 4 June 2024