Bioluminescence tours are Point Reyes Adventure Co.’s bread and butter
Liz Wilhelm and Dallas Smith have a lot in common: Midwestern natives living in California, veteran adventure guides and lovers of the great outdoors. It makes sense that their first date would be on a late-night paddle, with the flickering lights of bioluminescent phytoplankton dancing in the water around them.
“I remember using a corny line and saying, ‘Is this something in the water or this just sparks?’” Smith says. “Of course, it worked.”
When the two founded Point Reyes Adventure Co. this year to bring their passion for adventure to Marin County, they made bioluminescence tours a key part of their business. Though Point Reyes Adventure Co. offers backpacking, kayaking, paddleboarding and gear rentals, one of its most popular attractions allows enterprising paddlers to go out on Tomales Bay and witness the magic of this natural phenomenon themselves while camping overnight on a boat-only beach. Upcoming tour dates are Sept. 21 and 22 and Oct. 5 and 6; the tours are priced at $510 per person. For more information and to register, go to pointreyesadventureco.com.
Bioluminescence is the phenomenon that occurs when a chemical reaction inside an organism’s body allows them to emit light. This is the same process that gives fireflies and anglerfish their glow, though the creatures that illuminate Tomales Bay are much smaller.
“These are little phytoplankton, single-celled organisms that soak up energy during the day and luminesce at night when there is motion in the water,” Wilhelm says. “Oxygen gets introduced to the cell, and a chemical reaction occurs.”
As beautiful as they are, these tiny plankton emit light for practical purposes, and what looks calm on the surface is part of a vicious natural cycle.
“It’s like a defense mechanism,” Wilhelm says. “They’re at the bottom of the food chain. Lots of stuff eats them, and they’re attracting larger predators to eat what’s eating them.”
Bioluminescence can reliably be seen in Tomales Bay year-round, but the best time to see it is roughly from July through early November.
“It can vary in intensity from different spots in the bay depending on what the currents have been doing, where the wind’s been blowing,” Wilhelm says. “They’re so little they get blown around.”
Point Reyes Adventure Co. only leads expeditions on moonless nights to maximize visibility on the water. The phytoplankton are on a circadian rhythm and are consistently more active at night.
“On a tour, it starts off as maybe a little glimmer, a little shimmer,” Wilhelm says. “As it gets darker and darker, more of them become active, and, on a really good night, you might see little fish scooting past.”
Both Wilhelm and Smith have been guides for more than a decade. Wilhelm grew up in southeast Ohio, attended a two-year ecotourism and adventure travel program at Hocking College and first visited Marin during an internship in 2010.
“I just fell in love with Marin and Point Reyes, and I’ve been here ever since,” she says.
Smith grew up outside of Chicago and first moved to California in 2005, using it as a home base while working as a tour and adventure guide in more than 20 states; he made it his full-time home in 2011. The couple met that year while working at Blue Waters Kayaking, another local company.
“We both have had a long history of loving the outdoors,” Wilhelm says. “We’ve just been on so many adventures all across the Bay Area and across the world. It’s pretty fun to have an adventure partner, in life and in business.”