The bright, glowing waves are back in the Southern California.
Photographer Patrick Coyne ventured out in the early-morning hours of May 19 and captured the electric blue waves crashing near the Manhattan Beach Pier.
Coyne, of Torrance, has spent the past three years searching for the bioluminescence from Ventura to Orange County, venturing out in the dark of night to capture nature’s light show.
The photographer had not seen the glowing waves at the Manhattan Beach Pier since 2020.
“The glowing waves were pretty sporadic but bright!” Coyne wrote along with a video posted on social media, noting he wasn’t sure how long they would last.
Bioluminescent waves are tricky to track, but Coyne and a handful of other photographers have spent countless hours searching and documenting the phenomenon.
Sometimes, the sea stays pitch dark, and the outing is a bust. Other nights, the waves lighten and take on a glowing hue, giving hope there will be a performance put on by Mother Nature.
During the day, the photosynthetic organisms swim upward toward the light, creating a thin, dense layer near the surface. Then bioluminescent dinoflagellates, when disturbed by waves, a passing boat or even a sea creature, make the water look bright blue.
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