Object with red then white lights seen over the ocean 3 separate times in different locations.

My boyfriend and I were on vacation and sitting on the balcony overlooking the beach.  We were looking at a very bright reddish color star which we found out was Mars via the skyview app.  
All of the sudden, something appeared in the distance over the ocean close to where we were seeing Mars.  It had red lights that seemed to be in certain places around the object.  The red lights dimmed and white lights followed in a straight line around the object.  The line of lights trailed off with the end of the string of lights disappearing before the front.
Approximately 10-15 minutes later, the exact same thing happened again, this time to the left of the original sighting.  This time, a man sitting on the ground level patio alone turned around.  We asked if he saw anything and he replied “what the heck was that thing?!”  He also mentioned the red and white lights.
Another 10-15 minutes later, we spotted the object again further down the beach.