Swimming with living sparkles (Puerto Rico)
Puerto Rico has a few bays that have bio-luminescent dinoflagellates in them (they often just refer to these as “biobays” for obvious reasons. These are tiny single-celled organisms (a type of algae) that glow when motion disturbs them. They tend to be more visible where there are greater concentrations of them, often in shallow, semi-enclosed areas which keeps them from getting out into wider areas. The greater the concentration, the greater the glow you’ll see when waves crash or you paddle your kayak.
, for example.
There is one near Lagas, called La Parguera on the SW side of the island. The one in Mosquito Bay is supposedly much better but I didn’t have time to go there. There are three biobays in PR, plus one in Jamaica and one in Vietnam. If you are near one and are intrigued by unusual things and are collecting experiences (which have been found to relate to happiness), I would recommend going some evening if you are near one.
I read from a local that the bio bay was to the left when leaving the marina but our boat went around to the right and stopped a couple places and determined there were no dinos there. It almost seemed like it was a show to make it seem like they were working hard at finding them for us. Finally, we ended up going to the left and there they were.
Someone got in the water and swam between the boats so we could see them glow. They are just little flecks of light in the water. Rather like teeny-tiny fireflies with a white light. (I was surprised the light was mostly light, I had had some “pet” dinos for a while and they glowed a bluish color, like in the above picture, which is a product you can buy to see the glow from your own pet dinos). After that, our boat captain said that we had 5 minutes if we wanted to go in the water. 3 of us went in. Two that were prepared and wearing our bathing suits and a woman who just took off her top and swam in her tank and jeans.
It was hard jumping into pitch black water in the dark. I had my snorkeling mask with me too so I could look under that water and see them twinkling as the water around them moved. It was magical. Like little pieces of glitter coming off as you move your hands underwater. I couldn’t find any pictures online that realistically show what this looks like. I think we actually got maybe 3 minutes in the water and then, because the boat has no ladder, we had to be awkwardly pulled back into the boat by a thankfully very strong guy.
No pictures because it was super dark and doubt anything would show up. While I had dinoflagellates at home that looked like the above picture, in real life they seemed more white than light blue. I’m not sure why.
Here are some other places with dinoflagellates: https://www.anomadspassport.com/the-best-places-in-the-world-to-see-bioluminescence/
