Magical Lights

A story from John Mayer.

Bioluminescence in the wake of a boat

John, owner of Discovery Whale Watch and J&M Sport Fishing, has been hanging out on boats since he was a teen. Clearly he’s had many adventures out on the Bay, but the mystical, magical lights that caught him by surprise one night long ago, still rise to the top in his realm of memorable encounters.

CAPTAIN JOHN MAYER is co-owner of Discovery Whale Watch and J&M Sport Fishing. Previously he was the operator of the Blackfin, a vessel owned by Monterey Bay Whale Watch.

He was born in Santa Cruz and grew up in Pacific Grove, Carmel Valley, Monterey and Seaside.

He got his feet wet, so to speak, in the marine world at the age of fourteen. John says he stumbled down the wharf when a gentleman asked him if he’d like to wash his fishing boat. John said yes, had fun and did a good job, so he was asked to come again, and he kept on doing the job. Then a skipper noticed him and asked if he wanted to go fishing. John accepted and he’s been on the water ever since.

You can watch John’s story on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/E15UlPgViu0

MAGICAL LIGHTS

There’ve been so many memorable wildlife encounters, but I’d say out of all of them one stands out as truly magical.  I haven’t seen it again like that, so I’m gonna have to say that was probably the most unique and interesting experience. Forgive me, but I don’t think I have the facts down very well, because I can’t remember for sure what year it was. But I do believe it was during the 1997 – 98 El Niño. And we were fishing albacore. They were close enough that we were fishing on the Randy I, which is an old wood plank boat that we used to operate out of Randy’s Fishing Trips.

We were leaving that morning, early that morning and heading offshore for albacore. The skipper, I believe, was Raul. Anyway, we were heading offshore by Cannery Row. It was just a beautiful, dark night. I don’t remember if there was much of a moon.  It was super dark, but the lights from Cannery Row were reflecting real beautifully off the water. It was very placid.

We were heading out and I went to use the restroom. When I went in there, this little boat had no lights in the bathroom. You just had to shoot by Braille, you know. So I’m in there doing my thing. As I’m looking in the toilet, I see little specs of light going through the toilet. I’d never seen this before. Now I know what I’m looking at, but then I had no idea what I was looking at. I’m seeing lights in the toilet, and I’m thinking I have to have hit my head. In my head something’s going on, and I’m thinking this isn’t right.

And so I’m in there trying to finish up doing what I’m doing, and I’m looking at the lights in the toilet. The reason why – I’m gonna back up a little bit – is we used to circulate sea water through the toilets, and I never really put that together at the time.  But anyway, I’m seeing lights going through the toilet and I’m starting to get kind of wigged out, and I open the door and say, “Hey Skip, we’ve got a problem here. Either I’m losing it or there’s something seriously wrong with this boat. We got light going through the toilet water and it’s really freaky.”

So he doesn’t even look down at me. He just says, “You need to come upstairs.” And I’m like, “No, no, you don’t understand. There’s an issue down here. There’s a problem with the toilet.” Ha! Anyway, we kinda go back and forth, and finally he says, “Get your butt up here and take a look at this.” And so I’m, “Fine. Ok.”

I walk up top and it’s an open top drive. So where you’re driving the boat from, suddenly you’ve got a beautiful view. I walk up in front and what do I see, the entire surface of the ocean lit up. Unbelievable! What it was was bioluminescence. And it was happening that night. It was flat, beautiful, practically no moon. The illumination was so bright and so vivid it was stunning. And what made it even more stunning was the fact that there was baitfish everywhere for miles.

And so as the boat was pushing through the baitfish, they were exploding in every direction. Just exploding fish! And as the fish would speed up they would leave a little bioluminescent trail, and you can imagine this, extrapolating, thousands and thousands of these little fish. It was just mind-boggling! After staring at it – I’d never seen anything like it, never even heard of it – it was unbelievable! Just set me back!!

So we’re watching this as we’re going along, and we’re just going through acres of this stuff. Heh, heh, then out of nowhere, these great green bursts of light would just shoot through the bait: one after another, three at a time, four at a time. It was dolphins! I assume it was dolphins. It might have been porpoises, thinking back on it. But still, it was amazing. These dolphins started shooting through this bait. As they were shooting, you’d see beams, big, bold, long streamer beams of light going off in these masses of fish. And when the dolphins hit the surface of the water, it was like fireworks, and you’d see the streamers and they’d explode, and pow the fish would just blow up in sparkles! And we watched this go on and it was like a dream. Looking back on it, in my head, it was just as fantastic as I’m describing it. It was just amazing. I’ve seen bioluminescence plenty of times since then, but that particular night was a once in a lifetime shot. 

Thank you for sharing your story with us John!