Went camping this weekend and saw red tide

[asianflava]

I went camping this weekend but I didn't bring the teardrop. We had our annual camping/fishing trip. There are 2 steadfast rules set by the organizer, No Women & No Kids. It is very rugged an primitive so Women and Kids would not enjoy it that much, at least ours wouldn't. He made his nephew wait until he was 18 before he was allowed to go.

We camped at the Padre Island National Seashore. When we got there the park rangers said that there was a red tide which was made worse by the recent hurricanes. We had conflicting reports as to where it was worst so we went to see for ourselves. Drove down to the jetty and saw dead fish washed up all over the beach. Trout, redfish, mullet, seabass, even an occasional sea turtle. It was really disheartening to see huge bull reds washed up.

We camped further up the beach, away from the main fish kill. We came back to the jetty and fished in the channel. We all caught some redfish but none were large enough to keep. Even if they were large enough, we probably wouldn't have kept them anyway.

[Ranger Rod]

We're experiencing Red Tide right now at Navarre and Pensacola Beaches. There were thousands of fish killed @ Navarre beach. There has been a strong wind off the Gulf the past two days. The algae has become airborne and you can't stand to be on the beach. My eyes were watering so badly my wife (who wears contact lenses) had to drive home. We were both experiencing respiratory difficulties as were many other people who started coughing and sputtering when they got out of the car. At work today (I work on an island just N. of Pensacola Beach) it was windy again and whenever people would go outside, they would be coughing and hacking.

[asianflava]

When we were tearing down camp, everyone had that cough. I think we left just in time. A couple times my eyes were burning so bad that I could do nothing but close them I ended up taking a nap. By the time we got to the visitor center everyone's cough was gone.

[emiller]

I pulled up a web site on the red tide when my daughter came back from Florida, It said there is also airborne sickness you can get from Red Tide. Never herd of Red Tide till my daughter went to Florida.

[bledsoe3]

AF, I bet that smelled good.

[IraRat]

I didn't know that red tide actually kills fish. The only time I experienced it was when I was visiting Clearwater, on the Gulf. It stunk pretty bad.

But the ocean doesn't get it, right?

[Ranger Rod]

Red Tide not only kills fish, but it kills Dolphins and Manatee. This same red tide was in Pinellas County for about 8 months and killed about 30 Manatee.

The Atlantic coast even up into New England is subject to Harmful Algal Blooms (such as red tides that include fish kills, shellfish poisoning). The Atlantic coast is also home to a really nasty Dinoflagellate called Pfisteria that is particularly causing problems in the Pamlico River and surrounding areas in North Carolina.

[IraRat]

"Dinoflagellate" sounds like dinosaur farts! But seriously, what is this stuff actually? Like bacteria?

I saw a great documentary this weekend about this "Black Water Event" (I think that's what they called it), that happened in Florida Bay not too long ago. Nothing at all like the subject above, turned out to be harmless runoff of top soil after heavy rains, after heavy DROUGHT, that turned hundreds of square miles of Florida Bay water black.

It just got me further interested in the whole subject.