2012-09-23 11:34 hbos 12 jellyfish / head to head with pike

Weather : Cloudy / E wind 3 bft / Rain 0.00 mm / 1009 hpa

Divers : Remko, Guus, Axel
Goal : watersamples / visibility
Max depth : 14.6 mtrs
Duration : 84 minutes
Air temp : 11.5 celsius
Water temp : 18.0 celsius minimum
Fish: > 1 school of young perch and individials. 12 Freshwater Jellyfish in several sizes. 1 Eal, 1 very curious Pike
Plants : Green algea diminishing. rest of plants is stable.
Visibility : 8,0 mtr at 6 mtr depth, 8,0 mtr at 3 mtr depth
Remarks: At 14,5 mtr the dense milk layer was gone. Probably is now deeper. An incredible count of 12 Craspedacusta Sowerbii which were very active at this time of day. We spotted 4 near entry point at 4 meter depth with bottom at 9-10 mtr or so. Near Paviljoen I spotted 7 and 1 at 13-14 meter depth away from Paviljoen. The sponges are growing very hard on the pile near the measurepoint. You can see young zebramussels everywhere. Then there’s mr Pike. It swam towards me and offcourse the battery of my camera was dead. It looked me straight into my eyes. I backed up a bit and he followed me. When I changed course going backward…it followed me. It’s eyes rolled forward as much as it could and tried to get me in focus. When I swam backwards it kept a distance of 1 meter. I could clearly see it’s toolbox with these tiny teeth. This went on for about 4 minutes. Then I turned my side towards it and immediately it changed course and swam away very gently. Regardless the fact a Pike is smaller than a human it still deserves great respect. It’s head is impressive, but infact it’s entire body is one large muscle. Fact was I had picked up a tin can from the bottom and folded it on my lamp. I completely held te lamp away from the Pike, but it just might triggered it to take a closer look.  A dive I will never forget and I surely want to get to know more about a pike’s body language.