Palau -- Part III: Stingless Jellyfish?!?!

Jellyfish Lake

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Stingless Jellyfish? Yeah right! They exist, they are awesome, and you can swim with them!

Visiting Jellyfish Lake was one of the coolest things my husband and I have ever done. When Daniel was in Palau ten years ago El Nino had damaged the jellyfish population enough that he didn’t get to visit the lake.

Palau has many marine lakes. Five of them contain jellyfish whose stings are so mild they do not harm you. So yes, they are considered stingless jellyfish! Not only did we get to visit the lake that the 13 million-ish jellyfish live in…we swam in it!

Now, to protect the jellyfish populations and preserve Palau’s natural habitats, the government only allows people to swim in one of the five lakes. So it is definitely a tourist-frequented destination (and you have to buy a permit to snorkel there). But, since we were used to diving at 7 am, getting to Jellyfish Lake at 7:30 was no big deal – and we beat all the other tourists and had the entire lake to ourselves.

We had to hike up and down a hill of craggy, sharp, slippery limestone rocks while carrying our snorkel gear and waterproof cameras. We all geared up and slipped into the lake. The jellyfish are drawn to the sun, they follow it out of survival. In the shade/shadows is the edge of the lake, so my following the sun, they stay in the center. Why does that matter? Because along the edge of the lake there are white anemones that eat the jellyfish. Really cool, right?

So we started swimming, because we were in the shade there weren’t any jellies and I was wondering if we were going to be disappointed, but sure enough, as we swam into the center of the lake more and more jellyfish appeared.

Swimming with them was awesome…for divers jellyfish are usually our worst enemy – they inflict so much pain! Many divers wear skins specifically to protect themselves from the potential stings. And most divers have been stung many times (Daniel and I certainly have). Instead of fearing them, we got to marvel at their propulsion system as they puttered around the lake. These jellyfish are a beautiful golden color too, so they are really beautiful to look at. Now, at first you catch yourself delicately avoiding the jellyfish, afraid to let them touch you, but the further into the center of the lake, the more inevitable it becomes for you to come in contact with them. You could pet them and hold them in the palm of your hand (well, kind of, because they continue pulsating away).

It was really awesome. Just before we headed back Daniel and I discovered you could dive down in the shadows and rise up through the clouds of jellyfish – it was incredibly fun to do. We each took turns diving down with our fins and floating up through the pretty golden orbs that felt like jello.

The rest of the day was also a lot of fun. We careened in the skiff through the famously beautiful Rock Islands and then dove the Chandelier Caves. We dawned our scuba gear one last time and swam into a cave. But! This cave has air pockets! So we were able to swim into the cave and then resurface in caverns full of stalactites and beautiful rock formations. It was a fantastic last dive.

The next morning we disembarked from the boat and spent a portion of our day doing a river boat cruise and speaking with a local guide about the indigenous plants and animals on the island. Unlike Yap, Palau has saltwater crocodiles and some of the islands have monkeys. They have a few different non-poisonous snakes. It was really neat to learn about the different island creatures that exist between Yap and Palau. The islands are only a few hundred miles apart, but still have some stark differences in terms of animals and plants. Many of the plants in Palau were introduced by the Japanese during the early 1900’s occupation.