The bright blue, glowing waves are back off Southern California’s coastline, lighting up dark beaches for the past week to the delight of beachgoers who scout out the unusual sight.
The bioluminescent waves – caused by a dinoflagellate algae that turns the ocean red during the day but glows when agitated at night – have been documented in Oxnard and Malibu, in Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, and off San Diego’s coastline in recent days.
“It’s kind of sporadic along the coast, it’s not an insane algae bloom but enough where it’s in multiple spots,” said Mark Girardeau, who runs the website Orange County Outdoors and has been documenting the bioluminescent phenomenon the past few years, including several times this week.
The latest occurrence Girardeau spotted was on Wednesday, Aug. 30, when he and fellow photographer Patrick Coyne scoured Laguna Beach’s coastline. Earlier in the week, it had been spotted off of Crescent Bay, but it was only a faint blue then.
On Wednesday, they headed to Main Beach, where it was showing much brighter. The duo then found pools of water from the high night tide and splashed around in it, making their feet and the puddles of water brighten with an electric blue hue.
“It was crazy bright,” Girardeau said, noting about 20 others came over to splash around in the water.
Coyne, who traveled from Torrance to chase the glowing waves, just got back from Florida two weeks ago. He was there for a film project documenting the East Coast algae blooms that show up each summer, a more predictable occurrence where charter companies host tours for people to watch the water glow.
But here, the bioluminescence is less predictable, with winds and tides and waves making it a challenge to find each night.
Earlier in the week, Coyne and Girardeau also documented glowing bay water in Newport Harbor. And a week earlier, Coyne had traveled up to Oxnard and saw something he had never before – thousands of little sand…
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