Drake's Passage

Silent, transparent, soft and gelatinous, the perfect design for a voracious predator! Austral summer, cold, nutrient-rich water, where tiny organisms at the edge of perception and human sight abound. The southern ocean is rich, a secret treasure, the keystone of abundance. Microscopic plants feed microscopic animals; they in turn are prey for slightly larger animals, unnoticed, unobserved. Then the moon jelly, mostly water, all net, consumes. The moon jelly, the most ancient mariner, casts its net, fringed with tentacles, armed with nematocysts, harpoons with stinging tips. The jelly reaps the plankton, in silence and invisibility, carried by the current, plankton itself. Its fate, their fate, no better, no worse. All to die, food for crabs, food for bacteria, nutrients for the next cycle, the next generation. And so it goes, grow a penguin, grow a whale, feed a nation, make a jellyfish; the jellyfish does it too, the jellyfish does it all. Just another thought during our passage to Antarctica.