Swim in bioluminescent plankton

Saturday night I came home from down east visit in time to head over to Spruce Head to my friend’s camp and private sand beach on Penobscot Bay. It was our annual sparkly swim. My Marine biologist friend organizes this night time swim in August new moon so we can watch the phosphorescent glow in the water. It is magical.

The water is cold, but after about two minutes the body adjusts, and there is nothing like it. Swimming little sparkles fire off between my fingers and roll up my arms. Splashing and churning creates a glow cloud. Standing in the water and stomping up and down stirs up this strange vision of glowing galoshes. The dog swimming around us floats on a glowing cloud of stars. We were giddy with the beauty of it. Only about 6 of us went into the water past our ankles. Mike brings masks so we can look at the critters under water. As Mike pointed out, I have been to every single Phosphorescent Phantasia Pharty (couldn’t help that one) even the one that got canceled due to storms!

I just love this. My inner mermaid, my ancient sulky memory, rises to consciousness, and I don’t want to come out of the water. But I do, eventually, and there is fire and marshmallows.

last weekend, at a mud festival in South Korea I experienced this phenomenon. At first I thought that the blue light in the breaking waves was reflected from the city behind me, once I walked further down the beach out of the light I realized what it was. In awe we sat and watched it for 15 minutes before actually swimming in it. Immediately after plunging into the warm waters is when my mind was truly blown, the complexity of the universe seemed so purely simple, and amazing at the same time, it was baffling. Every movement of every limb was illuminated by 1mm dots of glowing blue. I had to run back to my hostel to wake up the others because I knew my description the next day would not do it any justice. I would recommend swimming underwater with your eyes open in the bioluminescent plankton, the blue colour and the blurred vision was amazing. I can honestly say this was the coolest thing I have EVER seen in my life. truly. if you can do it.

Now COME ON! Fireflies had me transfixed, this should have me in quite the mesmerized giddy state.