Transferring in Beer Land!

Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, did you say bio-luminescent plankton?

Yes, the woman replied. Out there at that island, Koah Tonsay, she said as she pointed out to the ocean.

They were eating lunch at a little beach front roadside restaurant in Kep Cambodia.

The couple at the table next to her explained that they were Canadian loggers. And they looked every bit the part. They were tan, muscular, wearing hiking boots, knee length jean shorts, tank tops and sporting mullets. They explained that they work for the logging companies all summer in Canada and make a bunch of money. Then, when winter comes and there's too much snow to log, they travel around Cambodia. It's quiet and inexpensive. The people are kind and the food is good. What's not to love?

They told her that she could buy a ticket out to that island, Koah Tonsay, but the boats only ran once per day. There were little shacks you could rent on the island, but there was no electricity or running water. They did have gas powered generators that would run lights from 6-9 pm. But after that was the perfect time to see the plankton.

She had always liked the plankton. She studied the freshwater version in college and even contributed to some published studies. However bio-luminescent plankton were something totally different. And she knew that they were disappearing quickly with ocean acidification.

Well crap. She was just in Cambodia for a weekend visa run and she was leaving that evening. She wouldn't be able to get out to the island to see the plankton. But at least she knew where they were and she could come back. She really liked Cambodia and had to do Visa runs often.

So back to Vietnam she went. Back to a poorly designed and even more poorly engineered brewery in an industrial strip mall. To assistants that routinely intentionally sabotaged their work and failed to bathe. To an owner with too much attention deficit disorder to be productive. And all she could think about were those plankton. So she quit. She packed her pink samsonites and bought a one way ticket for the night bus to Ha Tien.

Ha Tien! Ha Tien! The bus driver hollered as he slammed his hand down on the bunk next to her. She blinked her eyes open to his yelling and rolled off the bunk into the aisle. It was dark outside. The formerly packed bus was now empty. The entire parking lot was empty. How long had she been sleeping? She got off the bus, collected her bags from the parking lot and walked towards the boarder crossing.

The agents won't be there until morning, the bus driver told her. You can sleep here until then. She had a few hours so she walked inside the empty customs building, sat on the bench in the lobby, used her bags to prop up her legs and continued her nap.

As the warm sunlight and soft chatter around her increased, she awoke, obtained her visa and found a cab driver to take her to Kep. In Kep she went immediately to the boat dock the Canadian couple had told her about and bought a ticket to the island. Within the hour she was on a boat.

She spent the day napping on the beach. She ate a lunch of stir fry vegetables and the most incredible fried eggs shes ever had in her life. She had had a long day, but nothing would stop her from staying up past the generators to see the bio-luminescent plankton that evening.

At lunch she had met a Kiwi silver fox who was covered in tattoos and obviously running from something. Or someone. She had asked him if he knew about the plankton. He said he did. He told her that the agitation is what makes them glow. He said to swim out a bit after it's dark and tread water.

That evening, after the quiet hum of the generators ended and the strings of lights that lit up the beach side dimmed, she swam out in the warm water, alone. And it was magical. You could see the glow from the plankton as the waves crashed on the beach but that was nothing compared to actually swimming among them. In the pitch black night, it looked like sparks were flying off of her body as she swam around. The more she swam, the more sparks there were.

It was incredible. She swam danced around as hard as she could under the water and watched as the glittering shards flew from her. She spun in circles and kicked around. She found it difficult to put into words how neat this was. These were plankton unlike any she had studied before. This was like being on a different planet; a truly magical experience.