Swim in a bioluminescent bay

It was a gulf, not bay, but I think that counts. Gulf of Mexico, St. Pete Beach 1993 – absolutely amazing.

Swam at Vivian Bay, Kawau Island, NZ at around 12.30am on 1st January 2009. What a way to start the year! The most incredible experience. Jumped off the jetty and the flourescent green exploded in front of my eyes.I swam with goggles and I couldn’t see my arms in front of me except that their shape was defined by what I can only describe as green fireworks! When the people I swam with jumped in you could see was an explosion of bright green light when they hit the water. Walking on the sand where the waves hit the shore every step lit up beneath my feet like I was walking above am illuminated city far below me. I am not very poetic but, it was worthy of poetry.

According to www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/ :
“It can be expected anytime and in any region or depth in the sea. Its most common occurrence to the sailor is in the often brilliantly luminescent bow wave or wake of a surface ship. In these instances the causal organisms are almost always dinoflagellates, single-cell algae, often numbering many hundreds per liter.
They are mechanically excited to produce light by the ship’s passage or even by the movement of porpoises and smaller fish.”

So… basically you just have to swim in saltwater at night, with goggles on. It’s absolutely beautiful to see, and well worth the risk of being eaten by a shark ;-)

So since I have this on my list this is probably a stupid question, but how many bioluminescent bays are there in the world? Are they only in the tropics? I’m just wondering how hard this is going to be to check off the list!

As with the marriage plans… this one can join the queue to wait a few years before it will see any funding!

I’ll dig it out when it can compete on the list, but right now, need new roof! A ‘new’ second-hand car is not far behind…

I’ve already done this one, but figured I might as well use the list for things I have already accomplished. This would have never made the list had I started this 5 years ago, because I wasn’t even aware this exsisted. However, once I was in Vieques and heard about it I couldn’t pass up the chance. I’m not big on water, let alone in the middle of the night, but you only live once so I did it! GREAT EXPERIENCE

sweet

this does not seem important

I went night swimming on Treasure Island beach last week. It was beautiful. Treasure Island

http://www.biobay.com/

http://stjohnbeachguide.com/Vieques_HTML/Bioluminescent_Bay.htm

http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/

http://animals.about.com/cs/mammals/a/aa062102a.htm