About the "lets find it and poke it mentality," it was not like that. We didnt swim up and start manhandling it. We swam up, all of us looked, we took some pictures, then, using the butt of my dive knife, I gently poked one small part of it, to get an idea of the feel of it, because it looked like foam (or a dryer tube as someone said).
I'm normally very "hands-off" but I'm also underwater to explore and learn, and I had never seen that, neither had any of the people I was diving with, and now we better understand the things we saw, so I think that small exploration was worth it. After all, we wouldnt have any studies of fish without some contact, and I think as long as divers are respectful, and keep all contact to a minimum, and do it with some intelligence (i.e. not grabbing it with bare hands and transfering all sorts of fun oils or holding it so tight it breaks or dies) I think we can benefit the ocean by expanding our understanding of it.
Thank you to all those who weighed in, I had figured it was some sort of egg-sac, because it kind of looked like a glorified version of some other ones.
