Unidentified Creature from the ocean

In 2003 I went on vacation to New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The trip was quite uneventful for the most part, until the second to last night I was there. I was on the beach sitting in a lifeguard chair around midnight talking to my girlfriend on the phone. I was the only one on the beach as far as I could tell. All of the sudden I noticed that there was something glowing in the ocean about 40 yards off shore. The light seemed to being coming toward the land. I told my girlfriend that there was a light glowing in the ocean. The light proceeded to keep coming closer to the shore and I got more excited. Then something came out of the water about 30 yards away from the lifeguard chair I was sitting in. I tried to make out what it was but the only thing I could really see was the glowing light. The light appeared to be the same as a glowstick. I could make out the shadows of legs from the light that seemed to be like a dog, very skinny and about 12 to 20 in. tall. The glowing light was positioned in front of the creature and at first seemed to be floating in front of the creatures head, but after looking closer what I could see is it actually was attatched to the tail that was arched above the creature. I told my girlfriend everything I saw and she thought I was crazy. The best way I can explain it would be to say that it was the size of a medium to large dog with a glowstick attached to its tail that hung above its head. I knew it could not be a dog though because it had come from pretty far out in the ocean under water. I decided that I had to find out what it was even though I was very nervous. I climbed down from the lifeguard's chair and as soon as I stepped foot on the sand the creature seemed to notice my presence. It quickly retreated back into the ocean and I ran to where it was walking to see if I could indentify anything. I watched the light in the ocean until it disappeared far off the shore. I thought to myself man this is weird. But the weirdest thing happened the next day. I went back out to the beach and to my suprise the place where I had seen the creature the night before was roped off and there were two fish and wildlife vans parked on the beach. There were nine people from fish and wildlife there as well. When I asked someone what was going on they told me they were reseaching sea turtles. I found that a very odd coincidence that I saw something definetely unkown to my knowledge and then a government agency "Fish and Wildlife" roping off the same section. I am not familiar with research on sea turtles and cannot state for fact that Fish and Wildlife ropes off sections of the beach routinely or not. What I can state for a fact is that what I saw was no sea turtle. Has anyone else seen something similar to the animal that I have described?

It is obvious to me that the sea turtles have absolutely nothing to do with the story. As long as the thing you saw was not a sea turtle you can disregard it.

I was thinking bioluminescence, but the only animals with that live in the abyssal plain part of the ocean, way deep down.

Anglerfish have a long line above their head that glows.
This one is longer than the others and seems to fit the description of size. Look some up on Google images along with other bioluminsecent animals.

Certainly got me thinking, good story.

Was it the "Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission"?
Click here to visit their website. I've had a look, but not much about sea turtles & roping off parts of beaches...

It could possibly have been something from the medusa family (jellyfish etc.).
It could also have been some zooplankton. they glow at night.

I am taking a marine biology class by the way so that might give some validity to my answers.

A few years ago I went to Venice beach and they had roped of parts of the beach were there were sea turtle nests, usually the upper parts above the high water line.

So yes I have seen them do this but the description of this animal defies anything I know, could you tell how many legs there were ?

They routinely rope off areas where sea turtles nest around the beaches here. But usually it's volunteers and not a big Fish and Game -to-do. I have never seen our heard of anything like that...interesting.

Can you draw a picture and post it on here? Might help us understand better what you saw. Was it then a dog/wolf like creature with an scorpion like tail that hung over it with something glowing at the end? Did it have hair?.. How did it move/walk? Did it make any noise? Any unusual smells?