For more than a week straight, photographers, scientists and adventure seekers alike have captured dazzling images of an electric blue light emitting from Southern California’s waves at night.
The display of bioluminescence, created when a type of algae is agitated, is difficult to forecast, but over the last nine days, Californians have shared videos and photos of the phenomenon from San Diego to Point Mugu and several other locations in between.
On Monday night, photographer Patrick Coyne went to Marina del Rey, where he saw the brightest bioluminescent waters he said he’s ever experienced — quite a feat considering he’s been chasing the neon blue waves since 2018.
“Last night was so unbelievably bright that my iPhone was picking it up more than it ever has,” Coyne, 30, said. He said he’s been out at area beaches eight of the last nine nights, documenting waves crashing neon blue, surfers lighted up along the swells and the water glowing as he waded along the shore.
Coyne has amassed a large online following from his striking photos and videos, but also his willingness — and dedication — to find and share when and where the bioluminescence light shows are on display. Once he posts where he’s spotted the electrifying waves, dozens of followers soon join him at the spot, he said.
“I love showing people this phenomenon. … It feels like magic,” he said.
And for those who haven’t yet seen bright blue ocean, it might not be too late.
“We really don’t know; Mother Nature kind of decides when it shows up and when it doesn’t,” Coyne said, who estimated that he’s seen probably 300 occurrences over the last six years.
But he’s also struck out many more times.
“I have been out hundreds on hundreds on hundreds of time looking for it,” he said. But he’s feeling good about Tuesday night’s odds.
“If I was guessing, I think it will be there tonight — but I’ve been burned in the past,” he said. “It’s so random.”
Given the intensity of the glow he saw Monday night and the long streak already recorded, he expects there will still be enough of the microscopic algae — called dinoflagellates — that emit the bioluminescent glow somewhere along Southern California’s coast. During the day, those dinoflagellates cast a rusty hue across the ocean — often called a “red tide” — which sky cameras on Tuesday captured around the Santa Monica Pier. That strong showing also bodes well for more nights with bioluminescence.
But red tides — and coordinating biolumenescence — are unpredictable and quite fickle, according to UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They can last just one day or many, and their scope can stretch across hundreds of miles or be more localized.
“Previous events have lasted anywhere from one week to a month or more,” according to Scripps researchers. “There is no way to predict how long they will last.”
In 2020, the region saw a particularly long stretch of the spectacle over several weeks. It’s not yet clear how long this one will last.
“We have recently had dinoflagellate blooms up and down the California coast,” Clarissa Anderson, a biological oceanographer at Scripps and director of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System, said last week. “I am seeing plenty of Lingulodinium polyedra and Tripos furca the last few days — both are producers of the bioluminescence light shows we are seeing.”
Last week, a UC San Diego photographer captured dolphins gliding through blue, glowing waters.
The dinoflagellates known as Lingulodinium polyedra use bioluminescence to avoid predators by either scaring off hungry sea creatures or calling attention to their location, which draws the predators’ predators, experts have said.
Researchers are still working to better understand how these algae blooms affect ocean life and humans. There’s no public health warning associated with the events, but some people have reported health effects from the red tide.
