Early last week, a \u2018red tide\u2019 appeared… just for a single day. It streamed outward toward the pier from near the mouth of the Erskine River \u2013 a spreading river of pink \u2013 before the incoming tide fragmented it along the rocks of North Lorne. Aerial photographs, taken by Jonn Stewart, of this occasional natural phenomenon are \u2013 simply \u2013 stunningly beautiful.<\/p>\n
Later that night, the waves, the Lorne foreshore, and the rocks of North Lorne glowed an eerie neon-electric blue… the same soft, deep, iridescent blue light that now seems to outline so many of the roofs and spires atop the tallest city buildings in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
As each wave would peak and break with a \u2018crack\u2019 in the dark, the churning, tumbling water would explode in a burst of neon blue.<\/p>\n
As bare feet trod the wetted sand at waters\u2019 edge, perfect footprints in iridescent blue and purple glowed and sparkled in the tracks left behind. This nighttime vision was perfectly captured by Leon Walker.<\/p>\n
This extraordinary event marked another occasional \u2018visit\u2019 to our shores of a phytoplankton that, whilst common in our Southern Ocean, only occasionally blooms in such profusion that a \u2018red tide\u2019 by day, and \u2018blue nocturnal light-show\u2019 by night can be seen.<\/p>\n
I have seen it a few times in my lifetime\u2026 I remember once in my childhood, once in my adolescence, and then, again, sometime in the late 1980\u2019s. My son, Nick, then 10 or 11, vividly recalls the joy, late into one warm summers\u2019 night, of splashing in the shallows in front of the Swing Bridge, of kicking showers of blue sparks into the night sky, and of doing \u2018twirlies\u2019 with his hand in an incandescent ocean. Fishermen will have seen it too, now and again, in the wake of their couta or cray boats. But\u2026 once seen, never forgotten.<\/p>\n
A range of sources describe the term as a \u2018red tide\u2019 \u2026 a commonly used descriptor for a world-wide phenomenon that occurs when a ubiquitous species of ocean algae\u2013 \u2018dinoflagellates\u2019 \u2013 rapidly multiply into a pink or rust-colored \u2018bloom\u2019 in updrafts of deep-sea nutrients, or near river mouths following rainfall.<\/p>\n
While some blooms can be harmful to other sea and\/or bird life, they commonly dissipate as quickly as they form\u2026 as this
\nmost recent Lorne \u2018bloom\u2019 appears to have done\u2026 for it had gone, by the next day.<\/p>\n
But, persisting blooms have been known to cause toxicity to marine fish and bird life. Algal blooms are likely one of the more common reasons behind the intermittent mass \u2018die-offs\u2019 that are occasionally seen when \u2013 seemingly inexplicably \u2013 dead fish, birds, and other marine life can be found by the hundred and thousand, simultaneously washed up along our shores.<\/p>\n
Dinoflagellates are small, microscopic single-cell members of the plankton family.<\/p>\n
In this case, the wee beastie was likely Noctiluca Scintillans Australis (tinyurl.com\/lorne-sea-glow). All have one spectacular, awe-inspiring capacity \u2013 it is called \u2018bioluminescence.\u2019<\/p>\n
Many plants and creatures express bioluminescence: fungi, fireflies, and glow-worms are well-known cases in point. Bioluminescence is caused when an enzyme called luciferase, chemically combines oxygen with a molecule \u2013
\nluciferin \u2013 that is found in some plants and animals. This produces a glowing chemical reaction, usually green, blue or purple\u2026 the same principle as the snap and glow sticks used for emergency lighting, for camping, or for party wrist bands and necklaces.<\/p>\n
In nature, some species \u2018glow\u2019 when disturbed, or agitated \u2013 like Noctiluca scintillans does in a disturbed ocean, or when trodden underfoot in damp sand at the shore. Others use it as a means of attracting prey \u2013 like the glowworms deep in our Otway bush. Still others \u2018glow\u2019 when frightened, or in fear of attack \u2013 as a warning: \u2018leave me alone, I am dangerous\u2019.<\/p>\n
One thing is certain\u2026 while glowworms in the bush are magical, the sight of bioluminescence along a shoreline, or
\nof neon blue foot-tracks in wet sand at night, are magical memories that will last a lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Early last week, a \u2018red tide\u2019 appeared… just for a single day. It streamed outward toward the pier from near the mouth of the Erskine River \u2013 a spreading river of pink \u2013 before the incoming tide fragmented it along the rocks of North Lorne. Aerial photographs, taken by Jonn Stewart, of this occasional natural […]<\/p>\n