Kat Sack here! Sometimes Katastrophic Sackrilege to the running community, but most definitely The Mountain Lioness to those who follow and join my adventures. I currently call Tallahassee, FL home. The mountains are my favorite place to be and explore but given my location, I dive into other types of rad places too!

I created this blog as a personal project to document my adventures. Photos are great, but I love text describing more of the story and to recall what I have learned. I am no expert at outdoorsy activities, but I learn as I go! If you end up here, I hope you can get something out of it.

My original focus was on backpacking, hiking, camping, kayaking, and mountain biking. I have thus shifted the scope as I discovered my love for National and State Parks. I have the National Parks Passport and the Florida State Parks passport which have allowed me to discover places I originally would never have seen. Now I write about national monuments, history, run-cations, etc.

At some point I hope to dive into personal growth as well with topics including self-sufficiency and improvement, turning boredom into adventure, steps to heal my body and mind, and overcoming social adversities.

Life is an adventure. Go outside. Pay attention to all that is around you. Get lost in the moment. Everything has a story. Listen for it, even if you do not speak the same language.

Año Nuevo en Puerto Rico: Kayak en Laguna Grande

Kayak en Laguna Grande 

Año Nuevo en Puerto Rico - 2017 a 2018 después de Maria

1 Enero 2018



Summary:



The tour we originally signed up for can be found here: Kayaking Puerto Rico: Bio Bay & Rain Forest. We were going to be picked up from our hotel, guided around the rainforest, dropped off for the bio bay kayaking tour, and then returned to Old San Juan. Pretty much every part of this day did not go as planned, but that's okay!

The rain forest was closed for the most part, so that part of the tour was cancelled and we got money refunded. This also means we had to provide our own transportation to Fajardo, which ended up being better that we could do what we wanted. We enjoyed driving around where we could in the rainforest, we could even see the ocean from the high elevation...and also that Puerto Rico really is not that big of an island. The kayaking would be fun though...and it was!


The Gear:


  • Sony A5100 Mirrorless Camera
  • Tandem ocean kayak
  • Paddles
  • PFDs are important


The Story:


As we approached Fajardo, traffic began to pick up and we kept getting stuck behind slow, confused drivers. By that I mean the same two cars, a Toyota and a BMW. The Toyota was just plain driving slow, and the BMW was just a bad driver. There was no opportunity to get around them. We figured they were also tourists and joked that they would likely be on our kayak tour. That was until we hit Fajardo, where the roads were slammed and realized that there was a lot going on here. We ended up going around the long way thanks to Google Maps and struggled with finding a decent place to park. I think that's why they said to show up at 16:30, even though we really didn't get started until after 17:00.

We had some standing around to do. They kept encouraging us to leave cameras and phones in our cars, but no worries yo, I had my 1 gallon ziploc bag with me. Sit-on-top kayaks are usually hard to flip, and I've done far more potentially damaging things with this stuff. So Kayaking Puerto Rico has the BEST TOURS, PERIOD! I like confidence. There were significantly more people joining us on the tour than I anticipated. It was likely maxed out.




There were some neat trees on the beach area, and then there were plenty of bars that looked onto the lovely congested roads. It is a tourist hot spot with plenty of locals, I would hate to see it in full swing.

Photo Credit: Kayak Puerto Rico
Time for our orientation. It was a rundown on what our trip will entail, how to kayak, etc. My biggest beef with this excursion was when he was discussing who sits in the front and back. It was along the lines of "In the back will be the bigger, stronger, more experienced person. Up front will be the smaller and less experienced person." Rob and I were the only ones who caught on to the slightly sexist undertones of that statement. What if the small person is more experienced? What would they say if I sat in the back?

Anyway, I did end up sitting on front. But it was more agreed upon since I would be bringing the camera and taking a bulk of the pictures while Rob would use his manly man muscles to power the boat. In addition to pictures, I did a lot of collision avoidance, gentle steering, and slamming on the brakes. We were a good team.


They took pictures of each group before we got in the yaks. We were the second pair to get in our boat. Once we were loaded up we had to hold onto the boats next to us and wait for everyone to be ready. Knowing this we probably should have tried to be in the back. It gave us time to look around from the water and take some pictures.



By the way here is the Strava activity for a map view.

Once we were all ready to go, our lead guide started across the Las Croabas/Fajardo inlet. The water was a little choppy but nothing crazy.


Turned around and got a picture of Rob.

And then notice how far behind every body else is. Rob laughed and responded "Looks like we found the Toyota driver!". Too funny.


A selfie of the best tandem kayak couple on this excursion. 

Once across the bay we make our way into the mangrove forest which takes us to the bay.




We then see an iguana.



And then more iguanas.



IGUANAS EVERYWHERE




Iguanas staring people down.


Iguanas climbing out of the water.


No anclar en los manglares | Do not anchor in the mangroves

At this point the sun is beginning to set, which we can sort of see through the trees.


And then we emerge into the bay where we could see the full sunset. 




As well as the full moon. It is pretty, but it will be a problem for seeing the bioluminescence.


Once we all made it to the lagoon, the guides went over some facts about the area ranging from habitats surrounding the lagoon: how it was formed, basics on the bioluminescence, etc. Below is a list of fun facts either from the guides or from random sources on the internet.

Fun Facts!
  • Laguna Grande is a 50-hectare salt-water lagoon.
  • Bioluminescence is caused by dinoflagellates, which are tiny microorganisms approximately 1/500 of an inch in size that glow when they feel threatened. 
  • There are three active bio bays in Puerto Rico - Laguna Grande, La Parguera, and Mosquito Bay.
  • There are 14 known bio bays in the world, 11 of which are in the Caribbean 
  • These bays are surrounded by mangrove swamps since the mangroves provide the proper nutrition, B12 mostly as well as dissolved organic matter, for the dinoflagellates.
  • These bio bays require very specific environmental conditions including prolonged water retention time, nutrient availability, shallow basin bathymetry, and limited tidal range.
  • A 1.5km channel connects Laguna Grande to the Atlantic Ocean. Any changes to the depth or temperature could harm or kill the dinoflagellates. It is an extremely fragile and rare ecosystem.
  • The lagoon is surrounded by several habitats - a high terrain semi-evergreen forest, shorelines covered with woodland, tidal flats, mangrove swamps, and brackish-water lagoons.
  • The only freshwater entering the lagoon is from occasional intense rainfall runoff.
  • The iguanas are invasive in Puerto Rico.
    • The green iguanas, which we likely see in the photos, have "been introduced from South America to Puerto Rico and are very common throughout the island, where they are colloquially known as "Gallina de palo"" Wikipedia: Green Iguana
Sources:



We paddled around some more while waiting for the sun to set. While the full moon was beautiful, it was going to limit our bioluminescence experience. They made a great effort though where four kayaks at a time would go under a tarp to disturb the water in order to see the effect. I did not get very much from it though. And I'm okay with that. There is bioluminescence in Florida also, so it's not the end of the world.


After the effort, we began our way back through the canal to the harbor. We ended up near the back of the group this direction, and we were thoroughly entertained by how at least half the group had clearly never been in a self manually powered boat before. It was almost inconceivable how disastrously bad grown adults were at paddling boats. I think we ended up behind the BMW drivers. Every stroke involved hitting the boat with the paddles. Every few seconds they would be heading straight into the mangroves. Every five strokes to our one stroke was slower than us. The boat behind us could not control their boat either and ended up almost colliding with the boat in front of us. I don't know how the guides do this without laughing. It was a very entertaining journey back.




Afterwards we each grabbed a beer and shared some tostones for super cheap. The bar had some cool Puerto Rico flag dolphins.


Hurdles:


Full moon =/= easy to see bioluminescence


Quote:


“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” 
― Mark Twain

Related Resources

  • See links in the post
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Location: Laguna Grande, Fajardo 00738, Puerto Rico

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