Nuku'alofa, Tonga
A white algae tide sweeps into Kanokupolu Beach, 14 January 2015. Photo Shane Egan.
Nature played with the sea and the sky over Tonga this week as an algae bloom turned the seas frothy white, chocolate and red, while the sun shone through a champagne sky - captured on camera at Kanokupolu Beach this morning.
“Pretty bizarre out here this morning,” said Shane Egan, at the Blue Banana Beach House, who watched the algae tide coming in on January 14. “Started out ordinary enough then the beach misted over with a brown haze and the ash cloud created rings around the sun,” he said.
“Then as the tide rose the waves whipped the algae bloom floating through the breakers into a frothy foam which rapidly covered the lagoon in a layer of white.”
Shane called it a “mysterious morning”, and said there was still no pumice arriving on the beaches from the continuing Hunga Ha'apai eruption to the north west of Tongatapu.
The volcano is still erupting and creating its own marvellous palette in the sky this evening.
A volcanic plume creates an evening show as a new island forms beneath it near Hunga Ha'apai. Seen from Sopu, Tongatapu. 15 January 2015. Photo by Mary Lyn Fonua.
