Glowing blue water washes up on a beach in Vaadhoo, one of the Raa Atoll islands in the Maldives. The result of a chemical reaction called bioluminescence, it occurs when a micro-organism in sea water is disturbed by oxygen
Although a rare sight on a shoreline, the phenomenon is more commonly seen at sea in the wake of ships that stir up the oxygen in the sea, which causes the bioluminescent bacteria to glow.
Many undersea organisms ‘glow’, especially creatures that live at depths where light from the surface is less likely to penetrate.