Kayak Mosquito Bay

 

Nature can be fantastically weird. And perhaps nowhere more so than in Puerto Rico. For here, in a few select bays- of which there are just a handful worldwide- you can kayak right through the world's most wonderful watery light show.

Distance: 6KM to 10 KM
Location: Mosquito Bay, Vierques, Puerto Rico
Ideal Time Commitment: Two to Four Hours
Best Time of Year: Around the new moon, year-round
  

• Watching the sun set over the lapping Caribbean with a cool rum cocktail and a blast of salsa romantica.
• Navigating around the mazelike mangrove trees, which become an otherworldy- and slightly creepy- realm in the darkness.
• Tracing myriad fish gliding through the bioluminescence, leaving trails of glowing blue in their wakes.
• Gazing up at a blanket of stars- and then down, to see those same celestial speckles of perfectly reflected in the waters below; watch out for shooting stars.
• Dipping you paddle into the bay of delight at the halo of light created around its gentle thrust.

Pyrodinium bahamense  are ancient species of dinoflagellate- or minuscule spheres of sea gunk, to you and me. These 446-billion-year-old organisms very much like the water of Puerto Rico, at least in a few choice spots. They like the vitamins released by the roots of red mangrove trees, the relatice lack of any pollution and the limited tidal exchange of their favoured bays. And because they like it here, they treat us to their unique pyro-tastic show.
There are fewer than 10 places worldwide where this phenomenon occurs, and Puerto Rico is arguably the most spectacular.  There are three bioluminescent bays on the archipelago.
Here, you can head out after sundown in a kayak and watch as the world beneath you starts to glow. This is not a physical test of an adventure, but a chance to see nature at its most beautifully bizarre.