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Featured Image Credit: Instagram/@louise_in_wales/@life.on.plot.7
Topics: UK News
Jess Hardiman
Incredible photos show the sea at a number of UK beaches lit up at night with a beautiful blue glow, thanks to a natural phenomenon that occurs each year.
While the scenes look like the sort of thing you’d see in some tropical destination, the snaps were taken at spots along the coast of the UK.
It’s a spectacle that usually happens during the summer months in areas including Wales and Cornwall, such as the Gower Peninsula or the Glamorgan Heritage Coast.
The eerie blue glow is actually bioluminescence, which takes place light is produced when chemical reactions from a living organism.
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In this instance, the light comes from plankton as it moves in the ocean.
It’s best to see the display when it’s dark, and is usually spotted during astronomical twilight – a window between 11pm and 3.30am in June and July in the UK – although it has also been spotted as late as October and November.
Many people headed out to catch the ‘beautiful’ sight this weekend and weren’t disappointed, posting amazing snaps on social media.
Louise (@louise_in_wales) said: “Last night’s mission was to see the Bioluminescent Plankton. What an amazing sight it was seeing the sparkly blue over the waves at Dunraven Bay. Photos from a smartphone can not do any of it justice. Left at 10pm and returned back at 3am.
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“Totally worth it, best show of the Plankton was around 1am.”
Another user with the handle @lavieavec_peachie also wrote: “The bioluminescent plankton at Dunraven Bay was so beautiful!
“I’m so glad I finally got to see it after years of wanting to.”
Instagrammer @life.on.plot.7 added: “Electric blue waves, swimming in the sea with bioluminescent plankton with my boy last night.”
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WalesOnline also reported that the bioluminescent plankton was also spotted by Richard Haynes at the eastern stretch of Oxwich Bay between midnight and 3am on Friday morning (16 June), while Daniel Drewson photographed the phenomenon looking over from Three Cliffs Bay in the Gower, and Stuart Williams photographed the plankton from Caswell Bay.
The outlet previously reported that the plankton appear as a ‘faint glow’ but can be stronger on some nights ‘where the blue neon glow can be seen from as far as 100-200m away’, due to the water being agitated as waves break.