Friday night beach night fam: If you want to catch the return of the blue rollers along San Diego’s coast, pack your cooler and a few blankets and head to the coast this weekend.
Vishwas Lokesh, a Sorrento Valley resident who has lived in San Diego for about six years, saw the ocean phenomenon for the first time off Torrey Pines in 2018.
“It was a magical moment for me,” Lokesh said Friday. “I was like, ‘OK, the ocean is shining.’
Lokesh began photographing glow-ups during the weeks-long pandemic event of 2020.
“It was like glowing waves everywhere,” said Lokesh, who monitors the blue waves almost daily. “It got me hooked, and from that point on, I’ve been scouting locations…. It really seems like a magical moment to me.”
The good news for locals is that the waves are back. Lokesh shot them Thursday night north of Scripps Pier. The wave was a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10, according to software his engineer slash photography enthusiast. He thinks he will be back on Friday night based on his past experience.
“Yes, definitely,” said Lokesh. “If you keep up with the patterns I’ve been observing, it looks like you’re seeing the best part of the wave about an hour and a half before the tide peaks.”
90 minutes before (10:33 PM) and 90 minutes after high tide. He thinks 9pm and around midnight are the best times to see the waves. On Thursday, Lokesh said the waves were great early on. By 90 minutes, fog had partially obscured them, dropping them to 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. He suspects that will be the case again on Friday.
Where should the San Diegans go, according to Bluewave Hunter? The most consistent locations Lokesh found are north of Scripps Pier and Torrey Pines State Beach, but the views there aren’t as consistent.
Lokesh believes that with the continued warm weather this week, Black’s Beach and Torrey Pines could be places where the waves really shine.
“It’s an area with less light pollution, which gives better results,” said Lokesh. “Scripps has a lot of light pollution because there are lights and things that focus on the pier itself.”
A bloom of algae is currently offshore, said Clarissa Anderson, executive director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Southern California Coastal Observing System.
“This gives the water a reddish-reddish brown color,” said Anderson. “It’s full of organisms that usually do this time of year and in the fall. Don’t worry. We often see bioluminescence as a result of these flowers.”
Anderson said the lab had reports of faint bioluminescence and a possible blue wave tonight, but it’s hard to say.
Not surprisingly, Anderson agreed with Lokesh on how he sees blue waves.
“For now, your best bet is to go outside when it’s really dark and see some light in the turbulent waves,” Anderson said.
