Oct 2, 2011 – The Red Tide at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas causes the waves to glow a cool blue color. The glowing is caused by Bioluminescence from the algae in the water. It is called the “Red Tide” because the algae looks red during the day.
This video shows 7 waves. Each in “real time” and then in 50% slow motion for a more dramatic effect. No color correction was done to this video, this is truly how they look. I did up the brightness a bit in post-processing. To get these shows I went in the water about waist deep with my video camera. Pretty sure all the people on the beach thought I was crazy with a video camera just a few inches from liquid death!
For those in the Southern California area, you can see the Red Tide Bioluminescence Waves as far south as Mission Beach, and as far north as Huntington Beach. The best two places I’ve been to are La Jolla Shores and Moonlight Beach in Encinitas. I also stopped at Ponto in Carlsbad which was glowing, but the waves were breaking too far out to get on camera.