La Parguera · One private group per departure
Three bays, one guide who has been in the water more than three hundred nights, and everything nobody tells you before you book.
Your guide
The bioluminescent bays are perhaps the least understood attraction on our island.
Search for them and you will get the same advice everywhere: go on a new moon, book a kayak, expect electric blue water. Some of that is incomplete. Some of it is simply wrong.
I am Carlos A. López Ruiz. I founded Bucketlist Tours in 2018, and I design, operate and guide every departure myself. I have studied Puerto Rican history for close to thirty years, and I have been on that water more than three hundred nights, across every phase of the moon, every season and every condition the Caribbean can produce.
Everything on this site comes from those two things.
In the water
It is night. You are floating. You move your arm, and five hundred tiny flashes answer you at once, wrapped right around your skin.
La Parguera is the one bay of our three where I can take you into the water instead of asking you to look at it from above.
Bucketlist Tours · Carlos A. López Ruiz
Not out there somewhere. On you.
The experience
Afternoon
A private road trip from San Juan to the southwest coast, across the central mountain range and down into the southern plains.
Sunset
A private boat to Cayo Caracoles, with snorkeling in warm, clear water and gear for everyone. Sunset on the water.
Nightfall
Then we wait, because the bay keeps its own hours and so do your eyes. They need fifteen full minutes of darkness before they are ready.
After dark
I am the first one in. I show you how to move, how to read the halo, and how to lift your arm slowly enough to see the light blinking on your skin. I film it, and the footage is yours.
One private group per departure. No strangers on the boat. No age limit. I have had two-year-olds and eighty-five-year-olds in that water.
Afterwards there is a hotel where you can shower and change, and dinner is on the table fifteen minutes after we get back.
When to come
Every site tells you to come on a new moon. It is the smallest part of the answer.
There are another eight to ten nights in most months when the moon rises late enough that the bay is dark the entire time you are in the water. They are not on any bio bay calendar I have seen. They are on mine.
And on bright nights we have something else. We go out on a pontoon.
Under the platform there is no moon.
Read before you book
The story
I was seven years old, in the Abra Honda ward in Camuy, a child severely allergic to almost everything that flew, when I caught a cucubano and it did not sting me. It walked across my palm and it glowed.
When I was nine, my father took me to La Parguera on a glass-bottom boat. He told me the cucubanos were a gift from Papá Dios, but that this was His presence in front of us.
Almost fifty years later, I am still the first one in the water.
Questions
The answers vary enormously, and the price does not always tell you which is which. These are mine.
Yes. We use a partner hotel in La Parguera. You change there before we board and shower there after the swim.
After. It is ordered on the way in and arrives fifteen minutes after we get back.
Only your group. One private group per departure.
I am the first one in, on every departure, and I stay in with you the whole time.
No. I have had two-year-olds and eighty-five-year-olds in that water.
Life vests and floaties are included, the bay is saltier than the sea so you float more easily, and under the pontoon you can hold on to the ribs of the platform.
No. We snorkel at a cay for close to two hours first and watch the sunset from the water. The bay comes once it is fully dark.
To a camera, yes. To your eyes, whitish sparkles, perhaps pale green. Only at its peak does it show a hint of blue.
