Wednesday, March 18, 2015

3-17-2015 Bioluminescent Lagoon Tour

Accessible from the Sittee River by a narrow channel is Anderson's Lagoon, which is a bioluminescent lagoon.  That means it is filled with a kind of plankton that lights up when disturbed.  So, eight of us chartered a night tour of the lagoon from Patrick's Tour Belize.

We ate dinner at The Curve Bar (which is at the Sittee River Marina) before the tour, and this was the view.

At the dock where we met our charter boat we saw this little lizard under the bench where we sat, and he hung out with us for quite a while.

Our tour boat arriving at the dock.

Approaching dusk, it was a beautiful evening.

Patrick toured the river, and we looked for crocodiles (didn't see any) while we waited for it to get dark enough.

Okay, this isn't from our trip - this is a scene from The Life of Pi, but it gives you a very general idea.  I put this up because
pictures just don't turn out - they all look black, even when the water is glowing (bummer).  And no, it doesn't look exactly
like this picture.  The water doesn't just sparkle like we expected, and not everything just glows like this.  It's pitch black in
the lagoon, except for the zillions of stars.  The water is black unless something moves near the surface and disturbs the
plankton, at which point the water glows all around the object disturbing the plankton.  So, when the boat went fast enough to
create a wake, the wake behind us glowed for a few seconds.  And when we stuck our hands in the water as we were moving,
the water glowed around our hands and in their wake.  And when, as we witnessed, a spotted eagle ray swam through the
water near the surface the entire ray appeared to glow.  When fish got spooked and darted off we saw aqua blue glowing
streaks follow them.  It was truly an amazing experience!

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