Naples keeps getting better!!!

I have seen this when we vacationed in Key West, I want to guess 1995.
The algae was so thick by our hotel that people had to "high step" it walking near the shore.

Upagain. Just move. One less grumbler...

This a natural process, and one that is not permenant. Thank goodness!

The color of the surf as it rolled in south of the pier on Saturday was brown instead of white along with an odour in the air that was reminiscent of wet paint. The further south from the pier one travelled the greater the intensity and with the strong onshore breeze, the odour carried east of Gordon Drive leading some to believe that there may have been a chemical spill. On Sunday the water color improved, however the odour was still present. Many long time regulars at the beach indicated that this was the first time they had ever seen such an occurrence.

Trichodesmium - nature's nitrogen fixer

Getting sick of the increasingly aromatic low tides and of swimming through slicks of smelly 'sea dust'? One consolation to keep in mind is that to marine ecosystems, this particular ocean phenomenon is probably a major contributor of an essential nutrient - Nitrogen (N).
These slicks are made up of masses of blue-green algae called Trichodesmium. The algal cells can join up to each other in strings and clumps. As the cells age they become positively buoyant and rise to the surface. If it is calm, these cells get the opportunity to aggregate into huge slicks that are sometimes so vast they are visible from space.

The algae do not survive for long in these surface concentrations for various reasons, including damage caused by UV radiation, and soon start to go 'on the nose'.

The colours of the slick can be vivid due to the photosynthetic pigments in the algae, including chlorophyll that is green, and phycoerythrin that is purple. These coloured pigments absorb the sunlight energy that drives photosynthesis.

Dr Andrew Negri of AIMS sampling a Trichodesmium bloom - Photo AIMS. Nitrogen is essential to life. While nitrogen gas is abundant in air, it is not available to most plants and animals in that particular form. Trichodesmium deserve our respect because they are 'nitrogen fixers'- this means that they can take nitrogen gas from air and 'fix' it in a form that can then be transferred into the food chain. There is a strong suspicion among experts that a major source of nitrogen for marine ecosystems is that which comes via Trichodesmium. This input may even exceed the input from river runoff.
Unfortunately, the full significance of this phenomenon remains poorly understood because it is so tricky to study. Trichodesmium is impossible to culture for laboratory studies, and effective field observations are rare. While research efforts are underway to redress this, the most useful observations remain those made by Captain Cook over 200 years ago!

http://aims.gov.au/pages/research/tri...

Just stay out of the water until Trich leaves

. . . . Skin rashes are not the only problem that result from Trichodesmium. Around the world, these algae blooms have also been linked to liver and pulmonary damage, as well as gastrointestinal illnesses in humans. Furthermore, because these blooms can occur in both marine and freshwater environments, they can have a potentially adverse affect on drinking water supplies and freshwater fisheries. There have also been worldwide outbreaks that have poisoned farm animals, birds and fish.

Interestingly, despite the negative effects of Trichodesmium blooms, they may play an important role in slowing down global warming. While it grows, Trichodesmium uses photosynthesis to remove carbon dioxide (a damaging greenhouse gas) from the atmosphere. Likewise, Trichodesmium has the ability to remove nitrogen from the atmosphere and use it for nourishment. Thus, Trichodesmium plays a critical role in keeping these gases in check and quite possibly delaying the progression of global warming.

http://ambergriscaye.com/reefbriefs/b...

Excerpts from an article on the Florida Department of Health website:

http://www.doh.state.fl.us/environmen...

"Respiratory irritation due to toxic particles airborne in sea spray is typical of some Karenia species
and has been reported for a Trichodesmium bloom in Brazil." (page 9)

"One of the theories for why Florida has K. brevis blooms (Red Tide) involves species adaptations and interactions in a physical and chemical matrix on the west Florida shelf. This theory can account for most of the large red tides off the west coast of Florida (7). The theory recognizes that Saharan dust contains iron and iron is deposited over the west coast during storm events when the dust is carried from South Africa across the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico (7,8). These dust events precede Trichodesmium blooms based on an analysis of the historical database. The Trichodesmium blooms precede K. brevis blooms, which lag behind the cyanophyte blooms. Trichodesmium is an atmospheric nitrogen fixer but requires among other elements, iron for its enzymes. This cyanophyte or blue-green alga can occupy thousands of square kilometers of the Gulf of Mexico and can be very dense. The regenerated nutrients from these blooms, particularly regenerated nitrogen, could fuel large red tides, as could decomposing dead fish from fish kills." (page 10)

"The blooms can look like saw dust"

That explains the strange brown slick by Pavilion Key last weekend.