Glow in the dark waves

Port Elizabeth currently has a "red tide".

A red tide is a strange phenomenon caused by the rapid growth of a microscopic form of plankton. During daylight hours, the water close to shore has a reddish brown shade to it, but at night when the waves come in, the white caps glow in the dark. And they glow blue!

This is a fairly rare thing in these parts, although our couchsurfing host Kurt remembers having seen this once as a child. It was quite widely advertised in the media here, so Kurt and Leizel wanted to take their children to see it. And we wanted to see it too!

So around dusk, we drove out to a wide beach a half hour or so away from the lights of the city. Sure enough, as darkness came, the waved started glowing. And the crowds started coming!

It was really difficult to get a decent photo of this because the waves are only glowing, and of course it's very dark. So you need an exposure long enough to capture the glow of the waves, but short enough to freeze the wave itself. Not that easy! The photos above are the best we could do.

Another neat thing was that after the water came up on the sand and receded, the wet sand still had the microorganisms in it...so if you stomped your foot on the sand, the sand would glow for a split second. Not enough to be able to get a photo of, but enough to notice that it was pretty cool!

I managed to get a photo of Ruth doing a little dance in the sand trying to get it to glow! We all had fun doing this!

We hadn't done much during the day yesterday though. In fact, Ruth and I walked down to a big mall near our hosts place while they were at work and the children were in school. Ruth and Leizel together made a nice rice and chicken curry for us all for dinner.