Bio Bay Tour

This photo was taken just as we were about to depart for our Bio Bay tour. We have no pictures from the tour because it was too dark. But some of the images from that night are indelibly etched in my memory.  

Our tour guide, Peachy, was a big strong looking guy but was very soft-spoken. I immediately felt confident in his abilities. We traveled in a 12 passenger van to Mosquito Bay the location of the tour. It was the 6 of us plus two women from Brazil. The road was bumpy so it was a slow drive. We were told to leave anything we didn’t want to get wet in the van. Plus we had to take off our shoes because they didn’t want the clear bottom of the two-person kayaks scratched.

Once we got to the location we were given assigned numbers for our kayaks, paddles, and life vests. The Brazilian girls were #1, Jim and I were #2, Clay and Jean were #3 and John and Christine were #4. We were helped into our kayaks and set off following Peachy’s green lights attached to his life vest.

Paddling was super easy especially since Jim paddled in the back, basically keeping up with Peachy so I didn’t need to paddle. There was virtually no moon so it was incredibly dark out. We had no lights but just followed Peachy’s lights on his back.

Once we were in the middle of the lagoon you could see light through the water under the kayak and as we paddled the water would light up. Soon we started seeing streaks of light in the water. It was the fish moving about. At one point I saw a very large body of light moving through in front of us. I yelled, “Look at that, what is that?” Peachy said there was a manta ray in the lagoon and it could have been that.

Eventually, Peachy stopped us in the middle of the lagoon, brought the kayaks together, and talked to us more about the ecology of the lagoon. Here is an excerpt from wikipedia:

The luminescence in the bay is caused by a microorganism, the dinoflagellate Pyrodinium bahamense, which glows whenever the water is disturbed, leaving a trail of neon blue. A combination of factors creates the necessary conditions for bioluminescence: red mangrove trees surround the water (the organisms have been related to mangrove forests although mangrove is not necessarily associated with this species; a complete lack of modern development around the bay; the water is cool enough and deep enough; and a small channel to the ocean keeps the dinoflagellates in the bay. This small channel was created artificially, the result of attempts by the occupants of Spanish ships to choke off the bay from the ocean. The Spanish believed that the bioluminescence they encountered there while first exploring the area was the work of the devil (‘El Diablo’) and tried to block ocean water from entering the bay by dropping huge boulders in the channel.[citation needed] The Spanish only succeeded in preserving and increasing the luminescence in the now isolated bay.

Here is a video from one of the tour operators that is what the experience is like.