Crazy bioluminescence!!!

[Atom]

Just came out of the water (around dive site 'Chez Hines'), there was something I've never seen before, huge patches of luminescent little things everywhere around us, they seemed to respond to our lights. Anybody knows what this is? Super curious, and also amazed this was one amazing dive!!!

 

[Tunaman68]

I haven't heard what the name of the phenomena is but we took a guided night dive (didn't need to be guided but otherwise we wouldn't have known about this) and we went out in the shallows by Alice and settled on the bottom and then turned the lights off. It was like an underwater fireworks display!!! The one element would go up, then a little string of them would blink several times as it falls back to the ground (this happening a million times all around us) Amazing!! I thought it was a crustacean spawn but I'm not sure - I'd love to hear the scientific explanation!!

 

[tracydr]

Was it during a full moon or new moon? We had this happen on Bonaire as well and I believe it was during a full moon. That was the most amazing dive. Lots of strange types of luminescent,free swimming worm type things and also plenty of rays, all kinds of fish, lobsters. One of my best night dives.
we did our dive at Oil Slick, one of our favorite night dive spots.
Where is Chez Hines? Or, what is it close to?

 

[uncfnp]

It sounds like you guys experienced a really great bioluminescenct effect but you can often see some of this on a routine night dive. Just cover the lights and wave your hand around. This will trigger a glow from the bioluminescent plankton in the water.

Tracydr. I love Chez Hines but it is not routinely available as a shore dive since it is only reached by private property. It is south of the airport region, just south of the Belmar condos. We were able to dive it when we rented a condo in the area otherwise it is considered a boat dive site.

 

[Ray and Pam]

We were doing a Night Navigation course with Linda at Carib Inn on 10 Oct '07 (my birthday). Linda kept turning her lite off now and then, then it happened. She had us turn off our lites also and it looked like blue rain coming down. It was all around us and was like there would three lites going off one after the other heading down. It was happening all around us and was like little strings of three lites going off one at a time in a downward direction. I think she said it was the first time she had seen it and wasn't sure what it was called. It was a good birthday present.

 

[Atom]

It sounds like you guys experienced a really great bioluminescenct effect but you can often see some of this on a routine night dive. Just cover the lights and wave your hand around. This will trigger a glow from the bioluminescent plankton in the water.

Tracydr. I love Chez Hines but it is not routinely available as a shore dive since it is only reached by private property. It is south of the airport region, just south of the Belmar condos. We were able to dive it when we rented a condo in the area otherwise it is considered a boat dive site.

Im familiar with the type of bioluminescence you describe, and it's pretty cool, but this was on another order of magnitude.

I'll ask around at the shop to see if they know what this is.

 

[Haleye97]

That's plankton. I've never seen them, just learned about them in my ecology class. I think they respond to either movement or light.

 

[Tunaman68]

No it's most definitely not the bio plankton. That's the one you can get any time by covering your light and waving your hands or kicking your fins. This was an entirely different phenomenon. I believe it was new moon, but not sure....

So cool! Wannadive called it their 'magical' night dive...If we would have known about it, we wouldn't have needed a guide. We experienced it again under the salt pier where there was another group of divers so we turned off our lights and hung around on the edge of their illumination - soon we noticed the fireworks off in the distance and swam under a set of pilings and they were coming up out of the soft corals. I would love to know what it's called!

 

[Bon Diver]

It's called Ostracods and has got something to do with the moonphase. Very hard to take picture or film...

 

[Tunaman68]

It's called Ostracods and has got something to do with the moonphase. Very hard to take picture or film...

Thank you!!!

That led me to this....

Evolutionary Novelties: Ostra-blog 6 - Ostracodology and the Nobel Prize

The ones we saw were looked like the vertical strings that 'fell' while flashing as well as twinkling lights in and above the soft corals. Totally amazing!!