Mola Mola Heaven

    I'm really fortunate in a lot of ways, but one of the biggest is because I have a pretty kick ass job. I get to wear shorts whenever I want to, I work with a great group of dedicated people, and if conditions are good I can dive during my lunchtime. The bonus is that I also get paid to both freedive and tank dive.


    Last week before the winds hit I reminded my boss that we should try to collect some baby fish before the swell/wind changes. I picked the day and got the work boat ready, we called in our permits, gathered our nets and headed out. Since me and my buddy are the best freedivers on the team we almost always get to head out for specific fish and lead the collection attempts if it's based on freediving.


    A week or so ago we were successful in collecting a ton of baby rockfish for our kelp paddy tank, it's a gigantic circular tank where kids can crawl underneath and see what its like to be in a kelp paddy. We try to collect a bunch of different fish, halfmoons, spanish mackerel, baby rockfish, etc. When we were out there I had a group of 30 baby molas come right up to me, of course I didn't have a camera.


    This time I was a bit smarter, I had just ordered a GoPro2 HD from pursuit but it would arrive in a few days so I took my canon sd1000 with the housing. The first paddy we pulled up to had a single large mola so I didn't even shoot any video. However we came across several other paddies that had a lot of baby molas around them. They are one of the coolest fish you can ever watch, they stare at you with sad unblinking eyes and waggle their modified fins, they are absolutely wild to watch. I'm pretty sure they stick by the paddies because of the large amount of plankton that drift along with them, molas eat all kinds of plankton. I feel bad for them because sea lions area always messing with them, sea lions will grab them and tear off their fins and fling them around, sometimes they don't even eat them. I've seen that happen to a lot of them at catalina on the east end.


    At any rate, I shot a lot of video and edited it down. The visibility mid channel varied from 100' vis to 40' or so, the blue water was absolutely amazing. Hardly any regular fin bait (no mackerel, no sardines etc) present and that water was cold from the wind turning it over a week ago.


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjnFwW5DBdo

    Nice video. They can really move when they want to. I'd like to see a big one swim fast like that.


    It's amazing these fish evolved into what they are. What advantage could that shape possibly give them?

    I'm not sure Dan, I'll run that by Milton Love the next time he comes down. I know they spend a lot of time on the surface and I'm betting the large surface area vs width gives them maximum thermoregulation when they are laying sideways on the surface. Having a skinny body like a lookdown jack makes them harder to see when they are swimming towards or away from you as well.

    Quote from Dan

    Nice video. They can really move when they want to. I'd like to see a big one swim fast like that.


    It's amazing these fish evolved into what they are. What advantage could that shape possibly give them?


    The shape probably disqualifies them as a food source for many fish.

    That's awesome chris. Thanks for sharing. I have seen a fe baby ones at
    The nados. Pretty cool to see.

    BOBBERRYFISHCARVINGS.COM

    Amazing video. I bet it does not do the experience justice. Thanks for that


    Dan I'd imagine that the odd shape gives them the ability to seem much larger also

    i like to spear fish

    Cool. I had a strange Mola Mola experience once. I was diving in water with 8O-1OOft vis that was @ 12Oft deep. I dropped down and as the bottom, which was a sand, rock, bay, came into focus, I saw what looked like rows of huge scallops. The lines of the rows were in order, and there must have been over 5O of these shapes. As I descended bit deeper, I realized that what I was looking at were the faces of Mola Mola's staring up at me. I was at the end of my breath and as I turned to surface, one of them broke off and buzzed me at high speed, actually leaping clear of the water. Then it returned to the bottom. Never seen this again. I figure it was some kind of mating ritual. Maybe they were sitting on nests?

    50, thats cool!! How big were they, like six foot across big? They weren't nesting because they are broadcast spawners, but maybe they were in some kind of breeding aggregation or just hanging out? I notice the smaller ones (up to two feet or so) seem to hang out together while the big ones are more likely to be solitary.

    I only got a real close up look at the one which buzzed me, but that seemed to be @ 4-5ft accross. It was a surreal event. Just like rows of Scallops. This bay has an opening at one end, and the other end is open to the sea. Current flows through there pretty quickly. Would have been great photos..

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