One of the most unique and exciting tours you can do in Puerto Rico is to visit the phosphorescent (some call it the “bioluminescent”) bay at La Parguera. We had been to La Parguera about 7 years ago, but decided it was time for another trip. The bay at La Parguera is beautiful and it’s best to go early and rent a boat to explore the mangroves before you head to the bio-bay tour. La Parguera is about an hour and a half drive from Rincon (if you don’t hit traffic in Mayaguez), so if you’re going for just the bio-bay tour, expect a bit of a drive. But, it’s worth it!!
We got to La Parguera in the late afternoon and decided to get a hotel for the night. The Villas La Parguera are located right in the town center and everyone had told us that it was the nicest hotel in La Parguera. We don’t necessarily always have to stay at the “nicest” hotel that we find, but we decided to take a look and see how it was. Villas La Parguera is also part of the Puerto Rican Tourism Association “Parador” program, which promotes the small inns and villas of Puerto Rico. We poked our head in and saw that they had a nice looking restaurant inside the hotel, the lobby opened to a big pool area and the oceanfront rooms sat right on the bay, nestled right against the water. It looked like a really cute place to spend the night, so we asked about prices and were offered a garden-view room for about $70 a night and an ocean view for about $80/nt. We were going to save the $10 bucks and go with the garden room when the agent decided to have mercy on us and give us the ocean-view room for $75. sweet. 
The rooms were modest, with two queen beds, cable TV and air conditioning. The ocean view rooms had a small front porch which was nice and were just about 20 yards from the oceanfront. Our phosphorescent bay tour didn’t start until about 6:30, so we decided to take a quick dip in the pool and then walk around town a bit. The “town” of La Parguera doesn’t really have much to it, a few snack bars and restaurants centered around the docks, but that’s about it. We grabbed a Medalla at one of the bars and then headed up for our tour.
The tour starts at the dive shop and includes free snorkel gear (if you need it), fresh, homemade empanadillas by the wife of the dive shop owner and free beer (or sodas). After everyone is rounded up and had their fill you head out the to boat. The boat ride to the bio-bay is an easy 15-20 minutes and we were very lucky because the moon was nearly completely gone for our tour. You definetely want to check the “lunar phase calendar” before taking a tour – if it’s a full moon, or close to it, you won’t see the luminescenence nearly as brightly.
You can just begin to start to see as the wake of the boat takes on a little glow as you enter the bay. Once the boat pulls to a stop, you can put your hand in the water and see as it sparkles with any movement. It’s so cool, it’s really hard to describe. Each drop of water looks like a little crystal as you let it roll down your hand or pour water into a bucket. If you have people who don’t want to swim (it’s a little scary to get in that dark water at night, but totally worth it) – bring a bucket or two so they can play with the water onboard. It will make it a lot more fun for them. We had our snorkel gear so we dove in and started swimming. The effect is so much brighter underwater – totally surreal as you swim in the dark water and all you see are white and green crystalline sparkles. We both seemed to think that the effect was a lot brighter this trip around than our last. Maybe the moon was lower? Not sure, but at any rate, it was super cool and we had a great time.
The great thing about this tour is that they let us swim as long as we wanted – I’d say we were probably in the water 30 – 40 minutes. There are guys that leave from the dock and only charge $5 to go out, but sometimes they won’t let you swim and if they do, it’s only for a max of 10 minutes. For a little extra money, I’d say that the food, beer and extra time in the water are totally worth it.
We’ve heard that the bio-luminescence is fading due to pollution in the La Parguera area, which is a shame since it’s such a unique phenomenon. I’ve also heard that the bay in Vieques is 100 times brighter than the one at Parguera (we REALLY want to go now!) but, of course, that means you have to be staying on Vieques which is a bit of a trek. If you are only going to be on mainland Puerto Rico, you have to check out La Parguera.
Phosphorescent Bay La Parguera
Bioluminescent Bay Puerto Rico
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