Brian was obviously never a scout!

Thursday Night. Denise and i met Brian at the school at 8pm (Tina was sick and stayed at home and was very sad about it). Our plan for the night was to go Kayaking and diving with phosphorescent plankton. We had our diving masks, snorkels and fins in our bag and were ready for an adventure. Now mind you, we had not done any reasearch on exactly WHAT we were going to be seeing, just assumed that it was something that grew on the bottom of the lagoon that glowed this time of year and we would dive down and look at it. Brian laughed at our fins, our first indication that we might be wrong. We loaded up in his illegal vehicle once again and headed out towards the lagoon. We parked at a best western of all places and learned that this is where we would rent our kayaks from. One for Brian and one for Denise and i to share. they were sit on top tandoms. i had never padled a tandom or a sit on top and it was Denise's first time in a kayak of any sort. The sun was going down in the sky, the water lapped the edges of the lagoon, and the stench of dead fish was overwhelming as we stepped over them and on them to get into the boats. For some reason, in parts of the lagoon it seems as many fish float on top of the water as swim under it this time of year. I think it has something to do with excessive rainfall and the change in salt water concentration. The water now, is a deep chocolate color, but the locals keep telling us that sometimes it is actually blue. We padled and padled and padled out into the water and into the growing darkness. We finally settled some 20 minutes up the lagoon and sat talking as it grew even darker. The horizen was stuffed with dark clouds that blocked the rising moon yet gave the clouds amazing depth, and straight up, the sky was clear and the stars were clear and bright with no city lights to cloud them. Brian dipped his paddle in the water and said, "i think we hit a spot. Its happeneing". We look in the water, deep as we can in darkness and chocolate and think that he is NUTS. "Sure thing brian".... but as the minutes pass IT happens more! Think of a glow stick and the brightness of the liquid that is inside of it on a dark night. The warm water below our boat was now pitch black. When we dipped our finger in the water and "disturbed" it, it was as if we activiated the molecules within the glowstick and made it shine. As long as we moved, the water lit up. Forgetting about crocodiles and fish so thick that they jumped in the boat with us a dozen times on the paddle out there, forgetting about the smell and the dark, we slid into the water. Everywhere our bodies touched, glowed, every movement we made, glowed. Looking under the water we would push the water towards our mask and it was like being inside a carbinated beverage of light. I could do the breast stroke and look like a glowing angel. It was AMAZING. Quit, dark, and glowing. Back in our boats we could splash water and watch the bright light drops land on the dark surface and ripple outwards. It wasn't blue light so much (as in the picture i found online)... but more.... white, green, blue, bright..... As we paddled back the wake created from the boat glowed, and the millions of fish that swam around us glowed like shooting stars as they swam around us. It was mesmorizing! Amazing! I don't know that my words can even do justice to just how.... odd this was and how big the smile plastered on my face was at the time.
It was Sooo mesmorizing..... and so dark.... that we missed our turn off back to our little cove. back and forth we paddled (with completely flat bottom boats with no rudders) and all we saw on the shore line was darkness. Darkness and mangroves. The birds had begun to laugh at us. Brian finally admitted he didn't know where we were and should probably pull up somewhere and walk to the road and figure it out. So we did. Shored ourselves by a house that looked nice. We could hear them watching TV. "BUENOS NOCHES" Brian yelled a few times, but no one responded. So he got out to go explore and find road despite being barefoot, without a flashlight, on a blocked moon night. A few minutes later, lights came on and a family is standing there looking at us, pulled up among all the dead fish, and decided to help us out. They pulled our boats out of the lagoon and put them in the back of a pick up. Put brian in back with the boats and Denise and i up front with the driver and drove us back to the Best western where we returned the boats, payed for the boats, and retrieved our shoes. We made it back to Casamar by 11:30 and tried to make Brian promise to take a flash light the next time he attempted this feat! What a great night. I wish Tina had been there with us to experience this, and i hope that everyone who is so set on being afraid of Mexico and all the bad things that happen picked up on the part where we pulled up in someones yard in the middle of the night, woke them up, and got HELP, not kidnapped for ransom. I have to say that i LOVE the people of Puerto and feel totally taken in by the entire culture here.

1 comment:

  1. Did either of you have a camera with you? LOL. You always do. :-) Did you get a video of this? It sounds amazing.

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