All aboard!
Pelagic Salps are fairly common and I usually don’t photograph them even though I know they often have passengers. For some reason, I snapped a picture of this one on Wednesday night. It turned out to be a good decision although I did not know it at the time. When I looked at the image on my computer, I discovered the rider. A larval Octopus (a first for me)! The salp is about 1.5” long, so you can imagine just how tiny the octo is. When we dive tonight I am definitely going to pay more attention to salps.
On Wednesday night’s blackwater dive off of Palm Beach, we drifted 8.8 miles in two hours over water depths from 700-760 feet. There were lots and lots of critters. I exercised some restraint in the number of photos I included below. The baby Swordfish was the second highlight of the night - another first. Remember, click on an image to view it full screen.
