The hustle and bustle of everyday life can be incredibly stressful, and you may be counting down the days to your vacation to book a trip and let all the pent-up stress dissolve. If you have not yet decided on your next travel destination, then set your sights on Puerto Rico — a quaint island in the Caribbean surrounded by water that extends farther than the eye can see.
Off its eastern coast is a lovely island called Vieques, which is home to a particularly impressive sight: the Bahia Mosquito. More popularly known as the Mosquito Bay, it’s the world’s brightest luminescent bay.
There, you can take Mosquito Bay tours, which will surely be the height of your Puerto Rican journey. If you have not already, then now is the time to book a tour and place it at the top of your itinerary, and here is why.
It’s a One-Of-A-Kind Experience
There is no other place in the world that dazzles as brightly as the Mosquito Bay. Unlike its name suggests, it’s not swarming with skin-crawling mosquitos. Instead, its name comes from the El Mosquito, a ship owned by a pirate named Roberto Cofresi, who used the bay’s light to hide at night.
Its light comes from an extremely high concentration of creatures called the Pyrodinium bahamense. They are phosphorescent dinoflagellates that virtually glow in the dark upon contact with another organism. There are about 700,000 of them per gallon of water, so they seem invisible — apart from their glow — amid the densely-packed bay. There is no other place in the world with such high concentrations of glowing creatures, so it’s a rare treat that you should not miss.
The bay shines the brightest at night when there is no moon present, so it’s pertinent that you schedule Mosquito Bay tours the night before, during, and after the full moon, which you can determine with a moon phase calendar. However, you can still go on any other night if you do not mind two sources of light.
It May Not Be There Forever
Like many other natural bodies of water, Mosquito Bay’s light is not exempt from calamities and other disasters. Storms, tsunamis, hurricanes, and other natural disasters can potentially turn the bay’s light off forever. It happened during hurricane Maria — the bay did not shine for weeks but slowly sparkled after it recovered once again. However, there is no guarantee that it will remain the same in the next years. Consequently, now is the best time to book your tour so that you can experience kayaking across the brightly-lit bay while it still shines.
Great Social Experience
Many adventure sports and tours across the earth’s treasures are challenging and not easily accessible to kids. As a result, many families and tour groups with children and senior citizens often skimp on those activities. However, drifting across the Mosquito Bay is an experience that does not require a particular skill set, so everyone is free to participate.
Tours are exclusively for small groups of five, so you can have an intimate time with your travel group. It takes about 2 hours to complete, including meet-up, travel, and drop-off time.
The bioluminescent bay is a wonderful time to bond with friends and family without the pressure of physically-taxing sports. For a night, the stars leave the sky and travel across the water. It’s a truly magical experience that will blaze long after, especially in children’s memories.
This place is a good examples of how nature mold our planet. They harsh weather contributes to the beauty of the Mosquito Bay today.