Nubble Channel Mola mola
The weather hadn’t held up the way it was supposed to, the prediction of calm seas and no wind was gone with the morning hours. We headed out to search for and recover some lost lobster pots despite the less than ideal conditions. After a few hours of multiple dives, search patterns, finding a few traps and rescuing some big momma lobsters we called it a day. On the way back in from a not so eventful trip we spotted what seemed to be debris to avoid. Curiosity getting the better of most sailors we made a close pass to investigate and sure enough it was a huge ocean sunfish or Mola mola. These guys are massive gentle giants that feed on small to microscopic sea critters and algae type nutrients and are often found feeding or basking in the sun at the ocean surface. As the largest bony fish they have size on their size, this one was easily 6ft/2m from nose to tail with the top to bottom fin-span being easily 8ft nearly 3m. He/She was a little more shy than they are normally known to be and seemed to swim away from me in hesitation, before coming back to check me out for one last second then making its way down to the depths into the murky green water. They aren’t known to be that fast but I was very surprised at how difficult it was to keep up when it started to swim off and had some impressive thrust. It was an absolute treat to be up close and personal with these adorable and giant creatures, I’ve interacted with them in California and Hawaii but this is my first encounter with an Atlantic sunfish, the one notable difference being the water clarity and eeriness surrounding you more than the fish itself. The water visibility has been very low as the end of summer warms up the water and all the algae blooms and nutrient water are at their peak, there’’s a lot of turbidity and sediment compounding what’s already notoriously bad viz water. You can’t pick the hand your given however and the experience was fantastic nonetheless, now that I know the water has warmed up enough for the mola mola’s to be around I will be on the lookout for the next opportunity to hop in and share the sea with one of the big beauties.
-Capt Greg
