The Incredible Jellyfish Lake
Set on Mecherchar Island, in the Palau Archipelago, Jellyfish Lake, or Ongeim’l Tketau, as the locals call it, is one of the most unbelievable locations you’ll ever have the chance to visit in your lifetime.
The most amazing thing about Jellyfish Lake is, you guessed it, the jellyfish. A long time ago, this lake was connected to the ocean through an underground tunnel, but something caused it to collapse and thus the jellyfish that were there at the time were sealed in. With no natural predators like turtles or barracudas in sight, the jellyfish started multiplying, while feeding on the quickly-reproducing algae. In fact, even today, jellyfish need only fear the snow-white anemones living near the bottom of the lake.
These days, the lake is practically filled with a seemingly infinite number of jellyfish, swimming around and trying to absorb as much of the sun’s energy as they possibly can. To access this incredible location, you must cross a small, steep ridge, separating the lake from the surrounding lagoon, but once you reach it and get in the water you’ll realize this alone was worth the entire trip. Just imagine being in the middle of a beautiful, warm lake, surrounded by small, golden jellyfish, pulsating right in front of your eyes, as you sink your head into the water to take a better look. This might seem a little frightening for some, but there’s really nothing to worry about, unlike normal jellyfish, these ones don’t sting. Through time, because they didn’t have any threat to protect themselves against, the have lost their ability to sting, they do still have stinging cells, but they are so tiny, they can’t penetrate human skin.
During the daytime, the jellyfish come up, close to the lake’s surface, bathing in the sunlight and following its cycle and after sunset they drop into a layer of hydrogen sulfide, 15-20 meters towards the bottom of the lake.But don’t go packing up your SCUBA-diving gear just yet, as you may know, jellyfish are very fragile organisms, and the bubbles from the oxygen tanks can cause them serious injuries by getting stuck in their soft tissue and pushing them against the surface until they tear a whole. That’s why, Jellyfish Lake has been declared a fragile environment and only gentle swimming and snorkeling are allowed.
Just so you can get an idea about how many jellyfish you can run into, here’s what the locals tell visitors before they jump in the water: “when you see 1000 jellyfish, keep going, when you see 10,000 jellyfish, keep going, when you see 100,000 jellyfish, keep going, when you see 1,000,000 jellyfish, stop, you’re there.”
So if you have the chance to visit the beautiful paradise of Palau, don’t miss the opportunity to swim in the waters of Jellyfish Lake, surrounded by swarms of harmless golden jellyfish, it’s a unique experience that will definitely take your breath away.
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June 22nd, 2008 at 8:06 pm
If you like swimming with jellyfish then why wouldn’t you like to swim with manatees in FL? I saw this post and thought it was interesting and had to comment on it. hmmmmmm I hope they don’t sting ‘)
July 20th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
I have learn t somewhere that some of the jelly fish species are poisonous. In that case how do you distinguish the harmless jellyfish form that of the harmful ones.