Coming up!
Jonathan is engulfed by a giant swarm of Jellyfish!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
The Republic of Palau is an island nation consisting of more than 500 beautiful, unspoiled
islands in the Pacific.
This blue water paradise is a top destination for scuba divers from around the world.
Located 500 miles east of the Philippines in the middle of the Pacific Ocean—Palau
is well off the beaten path, a remote oasis in the sea.
The Blue World team has been diving here for a week already.
Aboard the Rock Islands Aggressor luxury live-aboard dive yacht, we have seen massive coral caverns,
sharks, reefs, huge schools of fish, world war two shipwrecks and dove in strong currents
with reef hooks.
But, we have not yet visited one of the places that has made Palau famous: jellyfish lake.
In Palau’s southern lagoon lie the Rock Islands—a collection of more than 250 former
coral reefs, which were pushed up out of the water 35 million years ago by volcanic action.
Many of the islands have lakes in the middle.
Although some of the water in the lakes comes from rain, seawater slowly seeps through the
porous limestone too.
So the water in the lakes is salty—but not as salty as the ocean.
Hence they are called Marine lakes.
Jellyfish Lake is a marine lake, but this one is special.
It’s full of jellyfish!
Now technically, jellyfish aren’t fish at all.
They don’t have a backbone, so the proper term is “jelly.”
But Jelly Lake doesn’t sound that good, so Jellyfish Lake it is.
To reach jellyfish lake, we take a boat ride through the Rock Islands to Eil Malk, also
known as Mecherchar Island.
So how far is the walk?
About 20 minutes.
Twenty minutes?
And it’s only halfway uphill so…
I gotta carry that thing 20 minutes up a hill?
Wait a minute I didn’t sign up for this!
After we show our permits, we have to hike up and over a big hill to reach the lake.
And all the gear has to be hand carried up the steps.
This camera has been to a few places but not many were this much work.
Well, I’ve come a long way to finally be here at Jellyfish Lake.
I flew across the world, took a hugely long boat ride this morning, Hiked through the
jungle.
And here I am.
And the only thing is, I don’t see any jellyfish.
So I really hope that there are some over there in the sunlit part of the lake.
Soon we start suiting up, but we’re only going to use snorkel gear because scuba gear
is not allowed.
I’ll explain that later.
Since we have a long swim to the jellyfish, our guide Matt is going to take the cameras
over on a kayak.
Julia and I will have to swim.
The lake doesn’t look very big, but when you have to swim across…it’s big.
As we start to see jellyfish, I get my camera and start filming!
They’re all over here because the jellyfish follow the brightest light on the lake.
When one side is in shade, they swim to the sunny side.
That’s because these jellyfish are carrying a kind of algae in their skin called zooxanthellae.
It’s almost the same exact thing found in the skin of certain corals.
The algae are plants and make energy from sunlight, which they share with the jellyfish.
So basically, these jellyfish are photosynthetic like plants.
They need the sun to survive, and get almost all their energy requirements from the zooxanthellae.
As they swim, they slowly rotate, giving all the zooxanthellae an equal share of direct
sunlight.
The jellyfish have been here for thousands of years.
With generation after generation of jellyfish living secluded in the lake having no contact
with the ocean, the jellyfish have slowly changed.
As they became more and more dependent on solar power and didn’t have much prey to
eat, they eventually lost their stinging cells.
So these jellyfish, known as the Golden Jellyfish are totally harmless.
And they are found nowhere else in the world.
They are related to the jellyfish found in other Marine lakes in Palau--but these are
special.
I mentioned before that there is no scuba diving allowed in here.
There are two reasons why.
First of all, a diver down below would make a ton of scuba bubbles, which would tear the
jellyfish apart.
They’re fragile creatures.
But there is something in this lake, that isn’t good for divers either.
The upper 50 feet of water, where the jellyfish live, is about half as salty as seawater on
average, and has fairly normal distribution of dissolved oxygen.
It’s your basic brackish water.
But below 50 feet, there is almost no dissolved oxygen, and instead the water is filled with
hydrogen sulfide, a toxic chemical produced as a result of decomposition of organic material
that falls into the lake from the surrounding jungle.
Because there is so little water flow in and out of the lake, there is nothing to flush
out the hydrogen sulfide.
It just sits down there, a toxic bathtub underneath the normal water above.
Divers could be poisoned by absorbing the hydrogen sulfide through their skin, so they
should never go down there.
Only bacteria can live down in the anoxic layer.
But in addition to hydrogen sulfide, the anoxic layer is filled with nutrients released by
organic decomposition.
Things that plants love—like nitrogen, and phosphorous.
As a result, the jellyfish make short trips down to the very edge of the deep layer every
night, to absorb some of those nutrients.
Their symbiotic zooxanthellae are plants, and like any plants, they need fertilizer.
The jellyfish have developed an ability to tolerate a little bit of hydrogen sulfide
exposure every day in order to feed nutrients to their symbiotic partners.
So during the day they give the zooxanthellae sunlight.
During the night they give them fertilizer.
And the jellyfish enjoy a life without having to hunt for food.
But that doesn’t mean something doesn’t try to hunt them!
Near the lake shore, the bottom is covered with anemones.
These animals are basically jellyfish that don’t swim.
But the anemones sting.
They wait patiently for food.
And their primary food is jellyfish.
This is another reason for the jellyfish to stay out in the sunny part of the lake--not
in the shade near shore.
In the middle they are safe.
This guy wasn’t so lucky.
After an hour swimming with the jellyfish, I make my way back towards the dock.
I can feel jellyfish bouncing off my skin as I go, and I’m grateful that these little
squishies don’t sting.
Jellyfish Lake is on every diver’s must-see list, but you don’t even need to be a scuba
diver to experience it.
It’s one of the most spectacular experiences in the world, an incredible illustration of
the complexity and beauty of life on Earth…an amazing wonder of the blue world.
Hey everyone, if you love Blue World and would like to keep this great content coming, please
consider making a donation to Oceanic Research Group’s GoFundMe campaign!
We could really use your help, and every donation makes a difference!