This is the rainy season in Thailand so we have had a considerable amount of rain but on the average about one hour a day. The last few days have been very sunny without any rain. The ocean has been alive with a very interesting cycle of life and death which I will describe.
First in the cycle was a kind of plankton. When you have large plankton blooms you can have a very magical experience just by going in at night time and waving your hands around. You will see the phosphorus glow given off by the plankton in the water. There are times we have had night dives when we normally take flashlights but when there is a very active plankton bloom the area we sometimes can swim without any flashlight since the activity of the Divers activates the glowing of the plankton and we can see not only where every diver is within a fairly competent distance but also we see other things in the water light it up by the phosphorus glow. We all look like giant Tinkerbells.
Then came the very tiny shrimp eating the plankton. You could just swish your hands around in the night waters and you would be touching thousands of very tiny shrimp feeding off the plankton.
Next on the scene where tiny fish coming to feed off the shrimp. Of course some fisherman came as well and captured millions of little shrimp, useful for making shrimp paste for some delicious Thai food.
Following the small fish we had larger fish coming in to feed off the smaller fish.
The next amazing animal we had were billions of sand dollars. During the day or night time you could just put your hand in the sand at any place and you would be scooping up live sand dollars. They were there for only one day and that was two days ago. There are a few left but a little difficult to find.
Next on the scene were medium sized jellyfish, not to mention the very common very very small jellyfish which are abundant in Thai waters. The photo below was taken today. You can see the size of the jellyfish relative to my hand. The tentacles are very thick and gelatinous. I have touched many of them and not a single sting but there is some orange part of the jellyfish inside I would not touch as a test.
So along with mass murder in the ocean there is also very congenial cohabitation of animals. If you ever have the chance to go through a season even just in a beach area as in Thailand you might be lucky enough to see the change in the prevalent animals.