The problem with stargazing back in Colorado, where we used to live, is that it gets so darn cold at night. In the mountains, far from the light pollution of the city, the nights are chilly in August, unbearably cold in November. But here, anchored out by a nearly-uninhabited island, the sky is inky-dark and the constellations shine, and we can see them all as we recline naked on the deck at 4:30 a.m.
We are up at this ridiculous hour to see a meteor shower, the Leonids. And they put on a show for us, winking and blinking and streaking across the sky. Every ten seconds or so another one goes, and we ooh and ahh appropriately. Mostly they are not very bright, but a few really sizzle, and one flares so vividly in orange and blue that it lights up the whole eastern sky.
We also get a show below us on these dark nights. The phosphorescence here is fairly impressive (although not on the level of Puerto Ferro on Vieques), and a nighttime dinghy ride creates a glowing wake. One evening Britt jumped in and came out with glowing dots all over his body which took quite some time to fade. That night we had lowered a waterproof light off the back so we could watch the fish. We encouraged them to visit by chumming them with pieces of Creole fish, which Britt had caught thinking they would be tasty, but which we had decided were not very good. The little fish ate the chum, and the big fish came in and ate the little fish. When we turned off the light to watch the phosphorescence, much to our surprise our cutting board also glowed -- it turns out that Creole fish are phosphorescent, too!
After Kajsa left, we moved to the south side of Blanquilla so we could try some different snorkeling spots. It's just as good here, and there are fewer boats -- just us and a catamaran. The terrain here is different, though; instead of dramatic rock caves and archways there are shallow fjord-like lagoons which begin with coral and rock and end in mangroves. The mangroves are fish nurseries, where baby fish hide from birds and bigger fish among the roots. We dinked into a few of the lagoons and snorkeled along the edges of the mangroves, finding them absolutely thick with tiny fish. Hundreds of thousands, millions of inch-long fish, pale and iridescent, flashed above and below and alongside us, a meteor shower of little fish.