Mosquito Bay

Now none of you are really going to believe what we did next and I wouldn't have believed it myself had I not seen it with my own eyes. We'd read and been told about a bio luminescent bay off the island of Vieques, meaning a bay that glows at night. It sounded cool but I was doubtful. Our ferry captain friend assured us it was legit and that it would be worth the cost of a kayak tour of the bay to experience the bio luminescence.

After getting the rum from our friends we started to get ready for the kayak tour of Mosquito Bay. We met our tour guide at our campground and he drove us in his rickety truck over to the bay. He told us a bit about the bay and then got us in our kayaks and had us meet him out in the middle of the water. It wasn't quite dark yet. Once we got out there he gave us a biology lesson on why the bay is the way it is. Its a very protected bay and is surrounded by Mangrove trees which grow in the salty water. The trees also put off more salt so the bay is much saltier than the actual ocean. These trees provide a habitat for some sort of microscopic plankton. These plankton cannot be seen by the naked eye but their defense mechanism is to light up so that they appear 50 times their size which makes them then visible to the eye....or at least their light is. So whenever they feel threatened they light up.

So we're sitting in the kayaks listening to this and I'm looking out at the dark bay thinking...no way. Pretty soon he says, "Ok, get in!" So we hop in and the effect is AMAZING. All at once I am surrounded by a cloud of light. If I move fast the light just glows. If I moved really slowly the I could see the individual lights of each animal. As I swam through the water it looked like I was traveling at light speed as all of the lights sped down my arm. It was amazing. I can't even express what an experience it was. What an amazing creation. There are few areas like it in the world because the conditions have to be just right.

All too soon it was over and we got back in the kayaks and went back to shore. Our guide did stop to show us the mangrove trees but they were hard to see in the dark. They are quite interesting trees....all roots that anchor themselves to the bottom of the ocean but then the tree grows above the water and looks like a regular tree.

I wish now that I'd taken my camera and videoed the experience. I figured it would be pointless since it was so dark. There are some photos and videos online but it just doesn't look the same anyway.

We got back, dried off and rode back to our campsite. We showered and got ready to go get some dinner in town before it got too crazy. After all...it was New Years Eve.