Moonstruck.

We have grown gills and webbing between our fingers & toes. Our hair is algae-like and fish recognize us as part of the tribe. We rise and fall with the phases of the moon, as we watch her travel from left to right across the northern hemisphere. Another full moon means another ostracod dive. Our first ostracod dive had us hooked, in spite of the fact that after the dive we had a pretty hard time getting back on shore again.

We were by ourselves, we had drifted quite a bit with the current, it was too dark to spot the correct exit and we hadn’t thought of putting a little telltale light to guide us safely out of the water onto the land again. As a result we had to crawl on shore on hands and knees with a heavy tank on our backs and with our fins draped over the edge of the coral heads for protection. Then, my Captain used the camera torch to go search for the car, stepping with naked sodden feet in just cotton socks on sharp coral rubble. The very opposite of tiptoeing thru the tulips.

But all of the above couldn’t dampen the excitement and thrill of the ostracod spectacle that we had just witnessed. And we decided there and then to do it again. But a wee bit better organized this time.

“The Ostracods, or seed shrimp, are a group of small crustaceans that measure only about 1 mm in diameter. They can generate bioluminescent light, which they use to protect themselves from predators. Bonaire is home to a special species of Ostracods, the “blue tears” or “blue sand” Ostracods, who generate blue light as part of their mating display. Every month after the full moon, the ocean lights up in a brilliant bioluminescent display that can only be compared to a beautiful starry night” .

We tried to capture it on film. But as we all know, eeriness strongly resists being photographed and Ramses isn’t here to come to the rescue. So just try and imagine this: there we are, 9 meter below the surface, on our knees in the sand amongst the soft waving corals, making bubbles in our bubble, as total darkness starts to surround us. All of a sudden small but very bright led-like lights start to pop up, one by one, at an accelerating speed until they are all over the place. And then they start to form strings that slowly rise up to the surface in front of our very eyes, like so many Christmas garlands draping the Christmas trees. In this case, the trees being the waving corals. Watching shrimp trying “to get lucky” is mesmerizing to the extent that I started holding my breath several times as we were gaping at this underwater Christmas fair.

Fun fact: in Japan they are known as umi-hotaru or sea-fireflies. “During WWII the Japanese army collected them, dried them out, and ground them down to powder. On the battlefield at night a small amount of water was added to the powder to produce a low intensity light, used to read orders or maps without giving their postion away to the enemy.” Not so much fun for the ostracod though, and it didn’t help the Japanese to win the war.

During the wait for the main performance, there is also the thrilling support act called “The Dinoflagellates”. These are a type of plankton that brightly spark in the inky dark each time you move, not unlike “fairy dust”. As a dive website justly describes it : this made me feel like Tinkerbell in space, with Peter Pan floating by my side. 

Given the current situation, breathing thru regulators is the best way to go anyway. We’re sad to report that COVID has been rapidly building its case the last couple of weeks, causing shops, restaurants and kiteboarding schools to close down until September 30th in what was announced as a “soft lockdown “. Now they are open again under special conditions, but we politely decline.

Also, the arrival of Dutch tourist planes is  strongly discouraged. The outbreak is clustered around a general practitioner, a day care center assistant and an employee at the tax office. So there was plenty of Corona virus potential to go around and plenty of contacts to be traced and quarantined. That’s why we only allow the same few neighbors that we trust on board, always staying outdoors while keeping our distance. Of course. And the chilean empanadas Enzo and Patricia from Santiago prepared for us last Sunday were very yummy indeed.

What is also vibrating in the air is American absentee ballot fever. An American cruiser with a laser printer on board is printing the ballots out for his fellow American sailors. Judging from conversation threads in the FB group, all of them are fretting about the upcoming elections. And since some States require the ballot to be mailed, – by postal mail, not thru email- their sense of urgency is palpable and quite contagious .We find the determination they display in getting their votes out in time a hopeful sign for humanity as a whole. A few of them also fly the peace flag high up in their rigging. So let’s hope that the blue tears shed on November 3rd will be tears of relief.

And in the meantime, we will continue to socialize with juvenile green turtles, barracudas, tarpons, ostracods and the occasional boat friends.