#70 Glow in the Dark Ocean Advenuture

Em and I did one last Badass Adventure before she left to go back to the big, bad world of Ohio Politics. We decided to do a bioluminiscent kayak run by my favorite company GoKo Kayaks.

So what's the sitch? Well, we are supposed to get into our kayaks, paddle out into the middle of the bay, and watch the water light up.

Here's a little science lesson:

Bioluminescence is used to evade predators and acts as a defense mechanism in dinoflagellates. Dinoflagelletes produce light when disturbed and will give a light flash lasting a fraction of a second. The flash is meant to attract a predator to the creature disturbing or trying to consume the dinoflagellate. The light flash also surprises the predator causing it to worry about other predators attacking it, making the predator less likely to prey on the dinoflagellate.

Did the water light up?

Oh my head.....yes it did! It really did! Like neon blue turquoise teal koolaid that lights up when the water is disturbed.

We spent lots of time raking our paddles and fingers through the water and being amazed at the blue cotton candy-colored water that took a split second to light up and just as quickly it went back to being dark again.

But that wasn't the coolest part.

We realized that if we didn't move and sat in the darkenss wthout moving, we could see fish swimming all around us.

The fish were lit up in technicolor neon blue as they swam by.

Holy freaking cow -- it was amazing!

And to top it off, there was an amazing firework display of heat lightning across the bay. Every few seconds, the clouds lit up with their own neon yellow bioluminiscence.

And occasionally, there was a bolt of zig zag lightning.

And sometimes that bolt of lighning went UP instead of down.

Never knew this could happen. So for clarification, I did some research to find out about it. Here's what I learned:

The most important finding about upward lightning, is that it primarily occurs when there is a nearby positive cloud-to-ground flash. Upward lightning can initiate without any preceding lightning activity, herein classified as self-initiated upward lightning. For self-initiated upward lightning to occur, storm electrification and the resulting presence of a cloud charge region is required to generate an electric field necessary for the initiation and growth of an upward leader.

Ok.

I understand it less now than I did before I researched it.

Forget all the science stuff. Just know this....it was incredibly cool to see.

Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to catch pictures of how glorious it looked.

So pretend this picture is of me and know that's actually what the water looked like:

And to supplement my Google Image Stock photo, here are some pictures of us goofing around, enjoying Datz restuarant in downtown St. Pete, and watching a movie in my community's theater (we both love a good heist movie, so Now You See Me 2 was our choice. It was a great pick!

Emily, I miss you terribly already. I can't wait until our next series of adventures in December, and until then, please adventure the heck out of Ohio. Work hard, be proud, make a difference, and don't forget to have fun along the way. I love you my ween!!!!!!