There are a lot of things to do in Grand Cayman from beaches to diving to exploring caves. It’s easy to stay on the west side of the island where you’ll find Seven Mile Beach and enough activities to keep you busy. But if you want try something unique, you can check out the bioluminescent bay in Grand Cayman.
If you’ve never seen bioluminescence, it’s a pretty cool phenomenon to see. My first time experiencing it was actually in Florida. After living here for many years and even vacationing within the vicinity of Florida bioluminescence, I was shocked to find out it was a popular tour to do on the space coast.
What is Bioluminescence?
First of all, what is bioluminescence? Bioluminescence is a phenomenon that occurs when single-celled plankton (also known as dinoflagellates) are disturbed in water causing light to emit. It’s like a tiny glow in the water. But when millions of these are disturbed in a single stroke of a kayak paddle, the result can be pretty spectacular.
Bioluminescence has a blue or blue/green color to it because blue light travels furthest in the water. It can also appear sort of milky blue or even white depending on how dim or bright the plankton are. We experienced different things in Grand Cayman, which I’ll get to shortly, but we definitely had a pretty blue night on one occasion.
Photographing Bioluminescence
As you can see from my photo above, photographing bioluminescence is a little difficult. Every now and then I see a photo online where someone has evidently managed to capture it, but I haven’t gotten there yet.
Since the tours will be at night, you’ll be shooting in the darkness. You’ll likely need a slow shutter speed (to capture as much light as possible) and a tripod, both of which are impossible on a kayak.
I captured the above photo on my phone and that’s about as good as it got. Otherwise, you may as well leave your phone behind. And if you’re someone who has managed to take good photos or videos of it, please give me your secrets.
Best time to see it
Grand Cayman is one of a few places where you can see bioluminescence year round. The best time to see bioluminescence is at night after the sun has completely set. You want the sky to be as dark as possible. City lights, neighborhood lights, etc can impact your visibility.
Even the moon cycles will affect how bright the bioluminescence can be, so it’s recommended to go around the New Moon, when the sky is as dark as possible. And some tours may not even be operating outside of that time.
The Bioluminescent Bay in Grand Cayman
You can see bioluminescence in Grand Cayman at the bioluminescent bay, which is located on the north side of the island. The bay is on the other side of Rum Point just a few minutes walk away.
Now, this isn’t a bay that you can walk up to and see bioluminescence along the shoreline (though those do exist elsewhere in the world!). Plus, the bay has private properties around it, so unless you’re staying on it you’ll likely be visiting on a tour.
How you’ll reach the bio bay will depend on where your tour departs from. Most either leave from the west side around Seven Mile Beach or around Rum Point. But it also depends on whether you want to do a swimming tour or kayak tour.
If you’re planning on visiting Rum Point or Starfish Point anyway, it might be more convenient to leave from the north side. You’ll be taking the main road up the island and along the north coast to get there. You can also add it on if you plan on exploring the East End and/or the Crystal Caves also.
How to See it
By Tour
Most people will need to join a tour to see the bio bay and there’s a few different options and locations:
- Kayak Tour – $70/person, 1.5 hour tour from Rum Point
- Bioluminescent Bay + Starfish Point Tour – $95/person, 3.5 hour tour from the Cayman Island Yacht Club on the NW side. Operates on Monday-Wednesday.
- Private Bio Bay Boat Charter – $500/group, 2 hour private tour for six people from Camana Bay
- Bio Bay Snorkel Tour – $145/person, 2 hour tour from Cayman Island Yacht Club
By Self-guided Kayak
When we went to book our AirBNB, we found a place along the north coast of the island that just happened to be situated ON the bioluminescent bay. Our AirBNB had a screened in porch right next to the sand and steps away from the water. It also included a 2-person kayak, paddles and life jackets so we could explore the bay on our own.
The water in the bay was very clear and very warm. We waited until nightfall each night to drag the kayak out and see if we could find any bioluminescence. It’s a great area to stay but it’s very far away from most everything else.
What to Do
Swimming
Yes, you can swim in the bioluminescent bay in Grand Cayman. Do you want to is another question. The water in the bay is warm and it’s fairly shallow. In some places, we could nearly touch our toes–so about 6 feet. Though we stayed pretty close to the docks since there were boats in the bay.
We had read that one of the best ways to see the water glowing was to be in it. So on our third night we brought out snorkels with us to go swimming. And it was pretty cool. Underwater, it looks like a thousand pieces of white glitter floating in the water with more appearing at every movement.
However, we were in the water for mere minutes before my husband got stung by a jellyfish. It wasn’t anything too painful and it wasn’t serious, but…not fun. There are thousands of jellyfish within the bay and afterwards, we read several reviews online of other people getting stung as well.
We also felt like we had to stay near the shoreline since we didn’t really have any way to make other water craft aware of our presence.
Kayaking
Another option is to kayak if you aren’t too keen on sharing the water with jellyfish. Once we got our kayak in the water, we paddled out into the bay and followed the shoreline for awhile until we started to see the water glow. It didn’t take too long to notice it.
But there are definitely ‘patches’ that are brighter than others and you may need to paddle around to find them. On our first night, we had some bright blue bioluminescence that followed our paddles in the water. It’s a much different experience from swimming in the water, but both are fascinating.
The kayak tours leave from Rum Point on the north side and it takes about 10 minutes to paddle over to the bay.
Is it worth it?
If you’ve never seen bioluminescence before, it’s worth going to see it. However, we went out three nights in a row and had different experiences each time.
The first night we saw the bright blue glow while paddling. On the second night we paddled around and didn’t see anything. And the third night, we saw very little glow while paddling but did see the sparkling glow snorkeling underwater before the jellyfish interrupted.
That is to say, the tours are a little more pricey if you’re on a budget and there’s a few factors that can influence your experience. We were glad to explore it on our own.
Things to Know
- There are jellyfish in the bioluminescent bay in Grand Cayman. They are more prevalent in the summer months but getting stung is evidently not uncommon.
- There’s all sorts of factors that can affect the plankton in the water and how bright or dull it will be.
- Tours are not always available (sometimes aligning with the moon phases), so you’ll want to check with the tour company on availability.
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