We went on the bio bay tour the other day with Abe ( his business) seira is one of his guides. We were able to go on the 8 hour day tour for free!! The 8 hour bio bay tour consists of kayaking through the mangroves, kayaking out into the ocean to a beach only accessible by boats, snorkeling at the beach, and then kayaking back into the bay at night and watching the water gradually start glowing with the dinoflagelates! Chris had been to the bio bay when he visited Vieques 3 years ago with his family, and he always talked about how amazing it was and that we HAD to go sometime! He explained that the bio bay is filled with these microorganisms called dinoflagelates that glow as their defense mechanism when they are moved or “threatened” he explained that when you paddled you would see the water glow and that you could put your hand in the water and pull it back up and let the water run down your arm and your arm would glow. I had a picture in my head when he explained this all to me and I thought it was cool. After actually seeing it in person, cool is not the right word for it….it is totally AMAZING!!! The most amazing thing EVER! Something that EVERYONE should see for themselves!! Let me start at the beginning of the day because the whole thing was awesome!!
-Chris and I woke up early 9 am, got ready and went to the fruit market that we go to every Tuesday, ( we have not missed one yet!) we got some veggies and fruits and bought some bagels that Wanda had made! ( wanda is a baker that seira helps out on Sundays and Mondays, she makes the most amazing breads!) Chris and I both love bagels and have not been able to find any on the island so when Seira told us that she had made bagels chris and I were so excited, we bought 2 garlic and 1 onion. I had one the next day, and I must say, I make a darn good bagel! It was the most amazing bagel EVER! Anyways, so after we got back from the fruit market, we all finished getting ready and piled into the car and headed up to Monte Carmelo, where Abe lives and where all the gear is. We helped load up the truck with life jackets and coolers and boats etc. Then we headed to Esperanza to pick up the other people that we were going with. When we gathered everyone we all piled into the truck and did introductions, turns out there were 4 other people on the trip from Raleigh!! Crazzy! They were friends of the people from Raleigh that own a restaurant in esperanza and they all just moved here. So we had a lot to talk about and got along really well with everyone on the trip! We drove out to the bay, got there around 2 pm, unloaded all the boats (two person sea kayaks), and started paddling out into the water.
First of all the bay is huge! I had imagined a large pond type thing, but no its like a lake! We head out to the middle of the water and then Abe tells Seira to lead the way…she starts paddling to the other side of the bay that looks like its just covered in brush and I have no idea where we are going. As we get closer I realize they are mangroves and we are going kayaking through them, I see a small gap in the trees and that is what we go through to get into the mangroves. Mangroves are trees that root in the water and grow all over and create this shelter of tree in the water with roots EVERYWHERE. Hard to explain but pictures help. So here:
this is coming out of the mangroves into one of the openings we had to lay down in our boat to clear the branches!
the green boat is just coming out of the mangroves. I dont know how the guides find the entrances into the mangroves!
seira teaching us about mangroves!
Kayaking through the mangroves was amazing. There was only one way we could go and it was a small path of water through the trees. So cool. Touches of sun would break through the tops of the trees to light it up and it was so perfect! We kayaked through the mangroves for a while and then ended up in a larger pool of water surrounded by mangroves where Seira told us all about mangrove trees and how they are very important to the bio bay and that the leaves that fall off the trees into the water and decompose into detritus and add to the mud that is on the bottom of the bay. This mud is LOADED with vitamins, protein, and minerals that are apparently really really good for your skin! So after learning all about mangroves we kayak on through more mangroves and then end up in another pool bigger than the previous one and really shallow. Abe jumps out of his boat and tells us all to do the same thing, the mud that meets our feet at the bottom is the mushiest, softest, stinkiest mud ever! But this is the mud that is so good for your skin! And everyone I had talked to said that you have to rub the mud on your skin and even in your hair. That it will make your skin and hair so soft! So of course all the girls jump in and start rubbing this stinky mud all over ourselves, legs, arms, bodies, and even faces!
I then made the comment about it being good for your hair so most of us dug up more mud and scrubbed it into our hair.
Usually it’s the boys that are always getting dirty and the girls that like to stay clean and not get dirty. It was the complete opposite that day! The girls were covered and the guys were looking at us like we were crazy and gross. So of course I grabbed two handfuls and covered Chris’ chest! The other girls got Abe!
We stayed in the mud for a while and we were all loving it! Abe showed us the proper way to make the perfect seat in the mud. You stand up in the mud (its like quick sand, you sink up to mid calf immediately) and start rocking back and forth back and forth and then you point your toes and you go down even further until you are about mid knee down in the mud and then you just sit! It really is the perfect seat! We had so much fun playing in the mud!
After getting as much mud off of ourselves (the smell stuck with us for a while unfortunately!) we got back in the boats and paddled back through the mangroves to the bay. We then kayaked out of the mouth of the bay into the ocean! So cool! I had never done that before but it was great! We kayaked out to this beach that you can only get to by boat! We beached the boats and normally Abe would have us snorkel out to these rocks to the left of the beach but it was really windy and the water was really choppy so we just walked down the beach and checked out some other rocks and all the snails and clams covering them. Abe even ate the snails and other brave souls tried the snails too. I was not one of them. But we watched the sunset on the beach, it was gorgeous! There was a rock out in the water right in front of where the sun was setting and every now and then a wave would crash into the rock and water would touch the sun it was really cool!! We tried to get a picture but we only had seira’s camera since it is waterproof! We did get some pics of the sunset:
After sunset we ate a little bit and Abe gave us all a little Malibu Rum, and then we got back in the boats and paddled back into the bay. As we were paddling we noticed these glow worms floating on the top of the water. I thought that this was the bio luminescence but it was just female glow worms that come up from the bottom to mate and sit at the top and glow and the males come towards the light. It was really cool. So as we are paddling into the bay I looked down at the end of the paddles as I paddled and thought there were just little bubbles coming off the end of the paddles. But it was the bioluminesce starting. It was very faint but the further we got into the bay the more and more it started glowing and then once we were totally in the bay chris told me to look down at the paddle again and I SAW IT!!! It was glowing!! He told me to put my hand in the water and let the water run down my arms, I couldn’t stop doing it, the water would run down and sparkle down my arms amazing! I was a worthless kayak partner at this point, as I was doing nothing to help move us along I was just too mesmerized by everything! We stopped and Abe tied off to a buoy in the middle and we all tied off to his boat and one of the other guides (Carrito)explained to us all about dinoflagelates. They are tiny microorganisms and glowing is their defense mechanism because glowing makes them appear 100x larger! Those are tiny little buggers! There are apparently dinoflagelates in the ocean, but the concentration is about 30-40 per gallon of water, and in the bio bay the concentration is about 300 – 720 thousand per gallon!!!!!!! This is the brightest bay in the world! We were able to get out of our boats and swim in it! Only 4 people got out to swim, dewey and I were the only people there who had never seen it, so we got out to swim and chris did too along with one of the other girls Elizabeth! I was so amazed!! It was like diamonds sparkling all over your arms!! The water is extra salty in the bay as well so they say you are able to float better in the water but I was not very buoyant that day apparently. So I kept my life jacket on and just floated in the water! Looking up at the star filled sky, there was not a cloud in the sky and no moon. It was so amazing! After playing with the dino’s we climbed back in the boats and headed back to the truck to go home. I did not want to leave but Abe told us we could join any of his tours anytime we wanted to! We will definitely be taking him up on that offer!! This day was one of the best days ever! I cant wait to do it again! We got back home, and showered, getting all the remaining mud off of ourselves and then we crashed! We were exhausted!
this is Abe, or Rasta as he likes to be called! He calls himself a Rasta Pirate! :) He is very cool!
I will say that my skin and my hair were really soft! I cant wait to get some more of that mud!!!
Oh what a wonderful day!!
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