Bioluminescent Bay

I strap the wet lifejacket around my waist, and make my way toward the water. I jump into the front of a red kayak, and my friend Bob takes the back seat (so he can do the steering!) It is 9pm, and as we paddle away from the bus lights into the narrow salt water channel, darkness suddenly turns to pitch black. All we can see are the thousands of stars above us, and the faint blinking red light on the back of the kayak in front of us. Suddenly, my ears are overwhelmed with the sounds of crickets, tree frogs, and iguanas hidden away in the thick mangrove forest. This background harmony music continues as we navigate the sharp left and right turns of the passage. Baby tarpon are swimming beneath us, and I am startled when they splash the surface unexpectedly. I am so focused on keeping a steady pace and not bumping into trees, that I almost miss the guide yelling for us to look down. As my paddle sweeps the water below, it practically lights up! We are here I think, as the channel now opens up into a large lagoon. I let my fingers drag in warm water, and the glowing little dots slide over my white skin. Each dot is about as big as a sprinkle, but the light it emits is 10x its size. Our guide ties all of the kayaks together, as he talks about what we are seeing. They are single celled biological organisms, and when we touch the water we are applying pressure to the cell wall, causing them to glow. There are only five places in the world where this organism can be found in such high concentrations, and three of them are in Puerto Rico! This is because it takes a very particular environment, rich in biodiversity and nutrients from the mangrove trees for them to survive. If anything happens to alter this perfectly balanced ecosystem, the organism will die. As a last amazing addition to the night, we get to jump in and go for a swim. As I tread water in this bioluminescent lagoon, looking like a human glow stick, I can’t help but wonder what the rest of Semester at Sea will be like. After all…this is only the third day!!!