Saint Patrick’s Day might be all about green, but in Laguna Beach Wednesday night, March 17, it was a bright blue hue behind cheers at the beach.
Photographers Mark Girardeau and Patrick Coyne waited Wednesday for waves to glow in the dark at just the right spot, a ritual they had repeated for more than a month last year when the rare bioluminescence phenomenon showed up across the Southern California coastline.
Word of glowing waves appearing Sunday and again Monday had the duo searching the Newport Beach coast Wednesday night in hopes of another chance at documenting the occurrence caused when bioluminescent phytoplankton are agitated in the water and glow. It was the spot where they first saw the phenomenon last April. But no luck.
Then, they shot down to Laguna Beach, where a handful of others waited at Crescent Beach for the sea to put on a show.
And then the ocean started to glow.
“It’s definitely faint and you have to let your eyes adjust to the dark and not stare at your phone for a few minutes before trying to look,” Girardeau said.
The blast of neon color came in waves, literally, because some of the larger set waves would have bright blasts, while other waves had almost no color at all, he said.
And as those electric waves exploded, cheers erupted from the sand.
“We couldn’t believe we were seeing it again,” he said.
Coyne, of Torrance, said he was in shock it came back almost a year from when they first documented it last April.
“I was filled with so much joy as we were filming these gorgeous blue waves light up right in front of us. We really don’t know how long this will last, but I’m so thankful I had the chance to see this again,” he said. “We’ve spent many nights talking about hoping to see it again and wishing it would come back. It truly changed my life last year.”
It’s unclear how long the bioluminescent phytoplankton will stick around; when it does happen it is typically for short periods. Last year, when it stretched for nearly six weeks, was the strongest plankton bloom in decades.