Glowworms, octopus, and lobsters, oh my!

In case you couldn’t guess, if there’s one place I love to be, it’s in the water. And this evening I had the opportunity to witness and experience the underwater world in a totally different way: at night. Now whilst night dives are common, night snorkels are less so. But there’s something to be said about looking down at an absolute smorgasbord of life under the waves, and looking up to see stars, planets, and a blood moon rising (it was a full moon night!).

Our evening started with a sunset wander along Bermuda’s railway trail, just a few minutes walk from BIOS. We watched the sun go down over the north Atlantic, eyes peeled for a ‘green flash’ (no joy today). Our first port of call was a very special event happening 56 minutes after sunset, in the shallow waters beneath a nearby bridge: glowworms. These critters have a unique lifestyle, reaching sexual maturity on just a few days of each month, those after the full moon, and it’s during their monthly spawning event they can be seen best; twinkling beneath the water’s surface. March is a little early for them typically, so we tempered our hopes, but were rewarded with the few faintest glimmers beneath the waves.

By this point it was completely dark, so we headed onwards to Whale Bone Bay, our snorkel spot for tonight. Wading out into the (not-so-warm) ocean, we left behind us a wake of blinking, bioluminescence. This is caused by tiny single-celled phytoplankton that emit light when they become agitated. They do this through a chemical reaction between a molecule called luciferin and its enzyme luciferase, causing them to bioluminesce bluish-green.

We bravely dunked our heads in the water and, dive torches in hand, began to drift out towards the reef. The first life that greeted us was Sea Hares (a type of mollusc, of the order Aplysiida), large aquatic slug-like organisms, in so many beautiful colours and patterns it was hard to keep count. Also scuttling along the sandy bottom were huuge lobsters – much bigger than I would have expected – and the way they move is more like a spider than a crab. They had these log antenna-like appendages that were at least thrice the width of their bodies. As we got closer to the reef we spotted our first sleeping parrotfish! The parrotfish is a beautiful iridescent green fish, about the length of your forearm, and they’re protected in Bermuda. But what’s awesome is that when they sleep they blow a mucus bubble out of their mouths, which fills with water to allow them to breathe, but be protected from parasites and such.

Whale Bone Bay, Bermuda

One of my favourite spots, though perhaps not the most coveted, was the pufferfish. Unpuffed, they have the dearest little faces and look really as if they are smiling at you. We also saw a couple of octopus, one was huge—bigger than my head!—and pastel pink and green in colour, the other was much smaller and hiding in the rockery. On the outer rocks of the bay we also came across eel and squid, the latter of which put on a real show for us, letting out a little bit of ink when we swam past! And we were constantly surrounded by shoals of needlefish, small thin fish which swim right at the water’s surface, so you don’t see them when you are looking down, but look up and one might (and did!) swim right into your goggles.

After an hour and a half in the water we began to shiver so begrudgingly I dragged myself out and walked the few miles back to the research station under the light of the full moon. It was an absolutely magical evening.