Seals, Sea Slugs, and Jelly's

I am exhausted. Fatigue has swept over every inch of my body. Pain radiates out of every joint and muscle. I don't remember being hit by a truck, because I wasn't. Scuba is to blame. 

I shouldn't complain. Though the seas were a bit rough, my motion sickness medication worked like a charm and the visibility was amazing. The dolphins didn't come out and play, but they were heard from afar chirping at one another and the sea lions were more the willing to come down and investigate us divers (though, in my mind, I could only imagine they were discussing how silly the little humans were, communicating with hand signals while wearing bulky gear in what is most definitely not our primary environment) .  There were "hairy" sea slugs, other sea slugs (I'm talking like 8 inches long), sea grasses, kelp bushes, fish in every color dancing around me as I slowly pulled myself through the water. At one point a harbor seal came down to check on us, the seal however, did not want to play; only keep a watchful eye on the odd humans in his/her environment. We even came across a sheepshead crab (ugly sons-a-bitches), who, without their 18 inch legs are about the size of bowling balls...and this one was in a feisty move and reared up (when slightly provoked by a fin...) snapping his claws at us. In another location there were brittle stars as far as you could see covering the bottom of the sea as well as the occasional foot in diameter star fish (that I'm sure have a technical name...but it's not coming to me...so just go with sea star...). 

However, even with all of that wonder, the fish, the mammals, the crazy urchins (part of which is still stuck in my palm...), and the myriad of other things that littered the sea yesterday, none were as cool as the jellyfish bloom. I was simply swimming along, telling myself to inhale...2...3...4...and exhale...2...3...4...slow down....be calm... when all of a sudden I notice the smallest, most delicate of creatures floating in front of me. No more than an inch long with it tentacles and maybe a centimeter across at it's "head", was this tiny jellyfish ebbing in the water. As I noticed it, I noticed that I was in the middle of hundreds of them (maybe thousands?), these tiny complex creatures, dancing around me like flowers on a breeze. It's tentacles couldn't have been much thicker than a strand of hair and pure white--softly floating, gently and slowly pulsating it's threads to bring itself food...but in that moment, I was amidst a bloom of the more delicate flowers I'd ever seen and those tiny little creatures made the dive.