Bioluminescent Bay

Bioluminescent Bay is:

"Hidden along the Caribbean coast is one of the most spectacular Bioluminescent Bays in the world. The mysterious blue-green light is created by micro-organisms which thrive in an environment uniquely suited to their needs. A trip into the bay on a balmy night is a magical experience. Fish flash by in dark water, and a swim is like floating through stardust. Wave your hand through the water you trigger so many of them that your hand lights up with a thousand tiny stars"

Why does it glow?

"This unique bay contains up to 720,000 single-celled bioluminescent dinoflagellates per gallon of water. These half-plant, half-animal organisms emit a flash of bluish light when agitated at night. The high concentration of these creatures (Pyrodimium bahamense) can create enough light to read a book from. "

I heard that there are about seven Bioluminescent bays in the world while three of them are in Puerto Rico. Thanks to our client/friend for bringing us to the bay in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

There were almost 30 persons of us. 2 person shared a kayak. Yes, we kayaked to the bay! It was pretty exciting. Imagine 15 kayaks took off from the beach in the dark! We left at 8.30pm. At the beginning, we crashed into each other and screamed at each other as we lost our control to the kayak. We wanted to turn left but ended with right and vice versa. After getting more comfortable with the kayak, we were then on our way to the biobay in a line. We passed through a long and thin channel. It was extremely dark! We followed the small blinking green light hung at the back of the person on the kayak right in front of us. Sometimes the channel has sharp turns, then quite many of us banged the mangrove bushes but they don't hurt you and you can easily get back on track.

After quite a distance, we saw something difference, noticed little sparkles as we dipped , it was no longer as dark as before, felt the water shining.

After getting out of the channel, led us to the lagoon. We stopped there and played around. The paddles left a swirl of glow behind at each stroke. We also used our hands to make the water sparkled. I thought I was in a dream, that was really amazing experience!

After time out, we got back through the channel, by that time, we were quite skillful in kayaking. We kayaked fast back. It was too dark that I couldn't take picture and we avoided spoilting cameras with water. The above pictures were taken from google search for illustration only. :)