The Sunshine Coast is known for its long sunny days, but it’s after the sun sets that Metta Eco Experiences invites you to slip into the waters of the Sechelt Inlet.
As day becomes night, a spectacle is about to begin. I had a few questions before joining one of the first kayak tours of the season, in early May. Isn’t it too early to see bioluminescence? Will it be too cloudy?
Greg Rushton, with decades of guiding experiences in his repertoire (kayaking, horse packing and dogsledding to name a few), assures me cloud coverage is welcome in Egmont. The less moonlight, the better to see. I decide to see it before I’ll believe it.
I arrive just before sunset to see the blue water meet the green tree-covered mountains. A mountain called Red Top reveals how it got its name in the waning light. I’ve missed a passing pod of orcas by 40 minutes, but make it in time to catch the tail end of a rainbow.
A brief dry-land lesson acquaints me with my new vessel, a Canadian-built Libra double kayak, and introduces me to the group. For one of the first tours of the season, two couples have travelled to Egmont specifically for this excursion, including one hailing from Australia’s own Sunshine Coast.
Metta Eco Experiences—named well before Facebook adopted a similar moniker—is run by partners in paddling, Rushton and Meriel Cammell. The pair have decades of nature-based experiences to their names, and met in 2020 as the world slowed and many turned to the outdoors for peace and reflection.
Their nighttime tour is designed not only to guide people through the natural elements, but to help them notice their own senses.
Rushton points out that many of our senses can be suppressed as we go about our daily lives in the built environment, where light dictates when we stop and go in traffic, and we spend more time than we’d like staring at screens. How often do we allow our eyes to adjust to nature’s rhythm?
Tonight we’re here to witness a more natural phenomenon directed by light, and perhaps discover what else it may illuminate within ourselves.
Senses heighten as we adjust to the dark. Layers of silhouettes of the mountains near and far start to come into focus around us as Vancouver’s lights cast a dim glow in the distance.
The nearby rush of the Skookumchuck rapids—the fastest tidal rapids in the country—is a constant reminder of how strong the pull of water can be.
But in the shadow of the trees on the waterline further north, the water is calm and quiet. I listen closely for sounds of orcas breaking the surface, just in case they return.
A small life form, a big impact
The star of the show will be a creature that is nearly invisible to the naked eye.
“What we're going to be looking at is the greatest migration on the planet that happens every night, not just here, but all over the oceans,” Rushton said.
Plankton. Millions of zooplankton are rising from the dark depths of the inlet to the dark nighttime surface in search of a kind of algae that makes up the phytoplankton.
The zooplankton “are the beginning of the oceanic food web,” Rushton tells us, and enjoyed in large quantities by humpbacks and other baleen whales. “One of the largest lifeforms on the planet, and they eat lots of one of the smallest.”
The phytoplankton also play a crucial role in producing oxygen and capturing carbon as they die, falling as ocean snow to the seafloor.
Where the zooplankton and phytoplankton interact is the reason for the bioluminescent show, as the phytoplankton deploy their age-old defense mechanism. The light blue sparkling effect can be triggered when the surface is disturbed by passing fish or falling rain or the stroke of a paddle.
'Stars above, stars below'
Bioluminescence typically occurs on the lower Sunshine Coast in the summer months of July and August. But the Skookumchuck Narrows’ nearby nutrient-rich ecosystem provides a healthy home and an extended period of the sea sparkles, just as Rushton said.
On each kayak, the guides have provided an optional but delightful piece of equipment: a simple wood stick. In the eyes of one young Irish tourist years ago, a stick became a magic wand trailing stardust. “Stars above, stars below,” Rushton recalls the youngster told the guide. And so sticks became a regular addition to the tours ever after.
The stick, paddle or dipping hands into the cool water below, stirs up the small creatures and makes them visible against the darkness.
We’re quiet as we absorb the atmosphere around us. Rushton and Cammell gently channel our attention and movements, sharing insights on our relationship with nature. As Cammell shares a song, her voice joins the soft chorus of the dark world around us.
The night is alive.
