We were looking for fire in the water, so at dusk we pushed our kayaks into the protected sea at Castle-haven Bay on the rocky edge of Cork’s coast, and began paddling in the last shreds of light.

Small boats tugging at their moorings added subdued dots of colour to the view, while the water beyond the bay’s mouth was densely black half a mile away – quite alarming really; you feel alone and exposed in a boat at night off rural Ireland.

Fire in the water is the best possible description for the ghostly experience we were chasing, but it sounds like a poet’s summary rather than anything you can rely on, and I was doubtful it would work. Still, we paddled out into the increasing darkness, Jim Kennedy leading the way. “This is my office,” he whispered, pointing to the towering hills, orange lights from distant village windows, and boats now disappearing behind us.

What Jim promised was an amazing light show staged by invisible phytoplankton in these peculiarly rich waters, visible at night in a ghostly but spectacular display of phosphorescence that should light up the dark. Or might not? I wondered whether nature ever performed to order as Jim promised. Who could guarantee anything in this dark seascape on a heaving tide, in little kayaks?

So we paddled on, the sea beyond the bay’s mouth now sending in great black heaving beasts of rollers taking us up and down in plummeting rises of 2ft or 3ft or more. But Jim is one of the best kayakers in the country, a former international champion, so I felt pretty secure with him leading.

He does this a lot: takes tourists night-kayaking into the lakes and seas near little Skibbereen so that they can share the dark and silence and motion and see that amazing light-show. Perhaps. Would we?

For a couple of hours, we simply enjoyed the peculiar sensations of night boating, its sense of vulnerability and calm. Once, Jim led the way into a secluded bay the size of a swimming pool. Here, it was so still we saw a seal rise ten feet from my bow to stare at us in equal astonishment.

Then we went back out into the moving sea and this was when we met a conclusive moment. Jim said, “Try it now...” So I put my hand into the warm, silky salt-water and waved my fingers just beneath the surface.

Fire in the water. More than I had ever expected or could possibly have hoped for, a million pinpoints of light merging into a broken, living froth that dripped off my fingers, my paddle, and rippled off my bow.

This was extraordinary in itself, but the next second I found myself gasping out loud as the entire surface of the water lit up almost with an explosive power and Jim shouted, “Look up!” and there, just above my head, a meteor was breaking into a thousand fragments, brilliantly mimicking the light under my hand, lighting up the whole of Ireland, so it seemed.

Moments later the International Space Station sped silently overhead, a blaze of moving light filling the airy gap between meteor burst and minute phytoplankton.

Fire in the sky, air, water.

Need to know

Atlantic Sea Kayaking (00 353 28 21058, www.atlanticseakayaking.com) runs tours for all abilities, by day and by night from short experiences to several days. The nighttime phytoplankton experience takes place on the sea or a lake and costs about £30pp.

Getting there: Several airlines, including Aer Lingus (0870 8765000, www.aerlingus.com) and Ryanair (0871 2460000, www.ryanair.com), fly from UK airports to Cork. It is a 90-minute drive to Skibbereen.

Further information: Ireland Tourism (0800 0397000, www.discoverireland.com ).

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