Light

  
          It is dark in the lagoon. In the past on such nights, we have taken a five-gallon bucket and filled it with water. Often, the water in the bucket twinkles and the sides drip iridescent points of light. When we pour the water out slowly, the stream glows into a milky galaxy of stars. Then the sea is black again, glimmering distantly with lights.

            These night lights are called "bioluminescence" by scientists, which means "living light." Years ago, walking on wet sand near Puget Sound, I saw in my footprints glowing blue dots. This was how I learned that microscopic sea plants and animals can shine when jostled. Bioluminescence is quite common in the ocean, anywhere that organized light does not overpower it.

            Offshore, we have seen tumbling white caps glow pure white and the wake of a freighter shine brighter than its cabin lights. Once, in a small bay in California, the nearby town lost power as we were rowing to La Cuna at night. Every time we dipped our oars, sparkling nebulae bloomed around them and swirled back into black water. The wake pushed aside by our prow glowed so bright, we could read a magazine by the bio-light. Now we are in the middle of nowhere, and such beauties have become routine, though never boring.

            Every time we row out an extra anchor at night, galaxies bloom from our oars and startled fish shoot off like silent fireworks. Occasionally, dolphins charge into the anchorage, pumping their tails and spiraling water around and behind them in tumbling tubes of light. For some time after they pass, the underwater eel grass continues to sway, stroking invisible plankton into twinkles.

            Tonight, the anchor chain at La Cuna's bow rocks through a misty angle, turning a soft shaft of living dark into light. Gentle wind blows little waves against the hull where they shatter in twinkles or rebound as short arcs of pure white. Fish moving nearby are blurred torpedos flickering at the surface, then gone.

            Suddenly we hear a shshshshsh-hiss. A long, uneven blue-white line rushes toward us from the beach, fastfast, crazy tumble of light closercloser, waterfall a tidal wave, nothing we can do—Thump!Thump! Some-things small and hard slam against the hull. Four or five milky torpedos rebound toward shore. Then flat dark water and La Cuna floating easily.

            We look at one another in wonder and pick up the bucket. The water we dip into it does not sparkle—it glows. Blobs of light drip from the bucket and plop like oil paint into the dark sea. We fling the water out and splat—a sheet of white flame, glowing light molten, flies into the lagoon, then gone.

            We hear the waterfall again, and see the wave shooshing fast in our direction, hiss of loose white light coming coming thump thump thump, fish slamming against our hull, one or two wobbling off.

            We dip up bucket after bucket from the dark lagoon. Exultant, we fling sheets and ribbons and streamers in every direction. Our faces are lit by the glow, and we too become living lights, shining across the sea.

                                               *     *     *

Excerpt from a memoir in progress,
Sailing Between Sea and Sky: What I Learned from the Ocean about Life on Earth
by Phyllis L. Thompson