A Blog of Personal Thoughts
Swimming in Bioluminescence
February 2025
Attending a writers’ workshop in the remote location of Halibut Cove in Kachemak Bay, I met one of my favorite authors, Louise Erdrich. Her teaching style was disarmingly casual. She made me feel as if we were participants together. It was not a leader-learner situation. When she gave a writing task, she also wrote and shared hers. She, like other authors from Outside, that is, outside Alaska, expressed the delight of a young child experiencing something new, be they shells, different plants, paths through the spruce woods, or swimming in bioluminescence.
The pièce de résistance came after dinner one night. Someone suggested a swim off the dock. Many of us donned the thick, waffle-weave bathrobes provided by the lodge and hiked our way down to the dock. Eight white-robed nymphs wandering the dark dock. Should I go in or should I not? I missed my daily mile swims in Kansas of years earlier. I really wanted to go, but I knew that water had to be cold. Kachemak Bay comes off the Gulf of Alaska. The Gulf covers itself in pan ice in winter. Yes, I checked the water with my hand. Cold. This was not water I’d gradually immerse myself into. Louise had already completed her swim. She then swam around the edge of the dock to the shore to get out. Hm, I thought, she’s more immune to cold water than I. I won’t swim around to emerge on the rocky beach. I paced the wooden dock. I wanted to go. I didn’t want to jump in. All of us chatted and laughed. Some sat on the edge of the dock and dangled their feet, stirring the water to create the magical bioluminescence. No, I did not do that.
I took off the robe and jumped in, expecting, wanting my feet to touch the bottom. I ran out of air before that happened and I had to return to the surface. Disappointed, I stirred my arms about to stay afloat and to see the colorful minute organisms in the water. Gorgeous. I could have stayed there for 20 minutes, but the water was cold.
Do I look at the stars or the bioluminescence? Both, at this sacred moment. Once I had extricated myself from the water, with the help of several of my dock-only friends, these lights still shone before my eyes.
Oh, salt in my mouth! Not to destroy the magic everyone else was having, I went to the opposite side of the dock to spit it out into the water. My spit created a perfect circle of more bioluminescence. Wow. How many more of these tiny ocean organisms did my mouth contain? Did I swallow some of them? Did they light up my esophagus? My stomach? How surprised the organisms and my tongue and other parts must have been to meet. Had I become the predator?
I assume many of my readers here may not have heard of bioluminescence. I think most of us have experienced this phenomenon at some level though. Have you ever seen a firefly? Different from fireflies, most bioluminescence occurs in marine life. According to NOAA, June 2024, (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), “Bioluminescent creatures are found throughout marine habitats, from the ocean surface to the deep seafloor.… Typically, bioluminescence is used to warn or evade predators, to lure or detect prey, and for communication between members of the same species.” I hope I was not considered a predator or prey when I jumped into their environment. All that happened to me was great enjoyment at the pleasure of their flashing mobility.
As I looked up from the bioluminescence, I stared at the sky. How lovely if there were an aurora in the black starlit sky too. I would love the simultaneous sight of bioluminescence, stars, and aurora to fill my soul.

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