Overview
Australian beaches are pretty damn beautiful whichever way you look at them, but the scene on Tasmania's northwest coast at the moment pretty much takes the cake. Not content with just being the only place in Australia to catch a glimpse of Aurora Australis, Tassie has had another inexplicably luminescent natural phenomena appear — but this time, in the sea.
An appearance of bioluminescent phytoplankton (otherwise known as sea sparkle, which is much more fun to say) have caused parts of the ocean to light up in an otherworldly bright blue on parts of the coast. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the sparkle was spotted near the town of Penguin over the weekend, while this shot was taken by Leanne Marshall a few beaches west at Rocky Cape.
Apparently the phytoplankton turn bright blue when threatened, so it's hard to say how long they'll stick around for. If you can't go algae-chasing on the Tassie coastline, here's some photos of the phenomena.
Via The Sydney Morning Herald. Image: Leanne Marshall via Instagram.