'ili liko o moana
Minutes before dusk somewhere near the equatorial counter current, my hand-line went tight with a good sized Aku (skipjack tuna). Fresh food for the next few days… mahaaaalo ke Akua. What happened a few nights later has fed my imagination to this day.
Aloha, Chris here.
It began during night watch, when I noticed a bunch of glowing orbs on the deck of the boat. Where I had broken the fish down, there were a few chunks that didn’t make it overboard. Some guts, some meat… but what caught my eye was the inside of the skin. Little pieces left from the dermis layer of the skin were charged with bioluminescence. “‘Ili liko o ka i’a?!” Glowing fish skin?!
This magical blue-like glow in the deep night sea is caused by a tiny organism called bioluminescent dinoflagellates. When the naturally occurring chemical luciferin oxygenates and combines with the enzyme luciferase, illumination is made. However, most bioluminescence I've encountered cease to glow when you pinch them. That particular fish skin was illuminated all night, it could be rubbed around like glowing paint! Playing with food sometimes leads to marvelous discoveries. What made this compound of bioluminescence stay in the fish's skin even after death?
As always, it's important to reference indigenous knowledge. The great pacific navigator Tevake was said to have known secrets about bioluminescence, or Te Lapa (underwater lightning) as he described them in David Lewis’s documentations.
“Far out at sea it moves relatively slowly; when land is near, say 10 or 20 miles away, it takes on a rapid to an fro jerking character. A further complication is that Te Lapa from reefs is slower moving than that from islands the same distance away… it appears probable that it is related in some way to deep swell movement, perhaps to ground swell or backwash waves reflected from land or reefs”
-Lewis, David. We The Navigators pg 253-254
I don’t know how this knowledge is applied for I have observed bioluminescence in the middle of the ocean and also nearshore. But my eyes are young, and I admire the wisdom because I have not observed such sights for decades at a time. Unfortunately Tevake departed on an intentional voyage to the spirit realm before leaving behind more of his wisdom. Meaning, he set sail knowing his time was spent well and never to be seen on this earth again.
Open ocean Bioluminescent encounters have some of the most memorable visuals. A few hundred miles offshore California had found me in a sea of glowing dolphins wildly chasing lasers. These “lasers” were squid, which are known to house symbiotic bioluminescent bacteria in their organs. They can control their illuminations up to 10 second intervals. In other words, extra shiny pulsing wonders. The dolphins and their prey resembled angels flying at top speed through the night in a frenzy of turquoise fireworks. The air was full of dolphin songs and my uncontrollable shrieks of excitement. It was so incredible I nearly forgot what world I was in. The spectacle lasted for nearly two hours. A couple weeks later I made this painting to remember the night
Another time, on the way to Alaska, the sea around the boat started glowing a milky green. Unlike bioluminescent algae that only ignites when it is disturbed, this is a continuous glow that scientists believe to be a super condensed surface of bioluminescent bacteria.
Returning to the ‘ili like o ka i’a experience. I couldn’t find much research on glowing pelagic fish skin. I found a lot of articles with a molecular explanation of bioluminescence but it's going to be a while until I understand that language. It is known that a lot of smaller species use their illumination for offensive purposes. To lure in prey. Perhaps the Aku was on nighttime hunt mode for that lure? Or perhaps it was on defense mode as it was pulled into the air? Perhaps it was a sign of stark changes in the environment? Or perhaps it was a genetically evolved fish… Maybe the dermis layer became more permeable than the epidermis layer because of changes in the marine environment?
Are there any marine biologists nerds out there that want to contribute to my ponderings?
Whatever it is, it's important to remember experiences like these. I highly suggest researching biomimicry. The greatest art of human kind is already designed for us, and the data is a low hanging fruit - go experience life.
Here is an excerpt from my 2020 film Whistle Of Wilderness that was inspired by bioluminescence.
https://www.instagram.com/mystomiyashiro/reel/CSivU4QghEW/
a hui hou.
CM
