Chesapeake Bay Red Tide and Goo

[Marcia]

Went for a slow, lazy sail today in a 5 knot breeze to try out our new used drifter genoa. While out we saw what has been reported in the news as a "red tide" of unknown matter. It's quite hideous with it's band of frothy goo at the edge. I took some pictures, but they do little to convey the magnitude of the tide or the extent of the goo. It was everywhere. I can't imagine what causes all this. I can't imagine it bodes well for the bay. Have other sailors seen this tide and goo?

 

[Ross]

Marcia, Check this link. It seems timely . I haven't read all of it.
http://cbf.typepad.com/bay_daily/2009/08/red-algal-blooms-in-southern-chesapeake-bay.html

 

[Manny]

Wow - that's really disturbing looking stuff! I haven't seen anything like that but the vegetation growth seems really bad up my way all of the sudden. On Sunday I got stuck pulling out of my slip an about an hour before high tide and then got really stuck coming back in about an hour after high tide. A couple of guys at the dock had to pull me in with dock lines!

Manny

 

[Stu Jackson]

Oh My God

Marcia wrote: I can't imagine what causes all this.

You're kidding, right?

Don't you all understand that it is those bloody boaters who cause ALL the pollution that you see in these pictures!!!

ALL boaters should immediately be BANNED from further polluting our pristine waterways with their foul smelling vessels and dumping their raw sewage into the clean waters.

ALL waters should be declared No Discharge Zones and NOTHING should ever be allowed to be discarded from those vicious and dangerous recreational boats.

All of our municipal sewage treatment plants operate flawlessly and never overflow or otherwise contribute negatively to the environment of our waters.

EVERY single pollutant in our rivers, lakes, streams, bays and oceans is due to those reckless recreational boaters.

Recreational boats should be banned and not allowed out on the water ever again.

 

[Jenni]

Did you bump your head Stu? You seem to be channeling a "Green". The only thing my boat discrages is rain water from the scuppers and a pit now and then from the bildges well and the cooling water from the outboard.

 

[Ross]

Marcia wrote: I can't imagine what causes all this.

You're kidding, right?

Don't you all understand that it is those bloody boaters who cause ALL the pollution that you see in these pictures!!!

ALL boaters should immediately be BANNED from further polluting our pristine waterways with their foul smelling vessels and dumping their raw sewage into the clean waters.

ALL waters should be declared No Discharge Zones and NOTHING should ever be allowed to be discarded from those vicious and dangerous recreational boats.

All of our municipal sewage treatment plants operate flawlessly and never overflow or otherwise contribute negatively to the environment of our waters.

EVERY single pollutant in our rivers, lakes, streams, bays and oceans is due to those reckless recreational boaters.

Recreational boats should be banned and not allowed out on the water ever again.

that's prolly what does it. certainly not lawn fertilizer or cars leaking oil or too many people fishing oysters out of the water. Must be them boaters. Menhaden are just trash fish and are only good for making paint and chicken food. crabs just eat dead stuff so catch as many as you can and get them out of the water. Of course municipal waste water treatment plants are a text book example of how we should take care of the bay.

 

[Cpt. Jon]

Noticed a bit of Red Tide over the last couple of weeks. If that is what is in your pictures its a algae bloom that happens when the water gets to a simple temperature. I'm pretty sure that I read that it "sucks" all the oxygen out of the water and kills tons of fish etc. I remember one year seeing tons of dead fish floating and then I saw the red tide. You can really see it well with polarized sunglasses. It's disturbing for sure

Luckily we have the Chesapeake Bay Foundation taking care of all this so we're fine

 

[Marcia]

Yes, it did seem to be sucking the life out of the water AND it was much more noticeable with my sunglasses on. No dead fish, but plenty of dead jellyfish floating in the scum. You guys are all TOO funny! I had to check his avatar make sure Stu was "one of us"! =D

I'm not an angry greenie, but I do try to be sensitive to our precious resources. I can proudly say I've only burned 2.5 gallons of gas, that's two POINT five gallons, so far this sailing season.

As a side note, I'm just finishing up James Michener's "Chesapeake". A fabulous novel based on the history of the Chesapeake, the Eastern Shore in particular. LOTS of sailing lingo, as this was the #1 form of transportation on the Eastern Shore.

 

[sailaway78]

Red Tide

I have seen the red tide in S.Texas bays, and it can be really nasty stuff. Several years ago they had a gigantic algae bloom, the virtually wiped out fish populations. I have heard lots of explanations, but I don't think anyone knows the exact cause. Some mixture of water temp and nutrients in the water. I think there is much more blame to be placed on runoff than anything boaters do.

 

[Ross]

Re: Red Tide

Think about the effect on the water when about a million geese and other migratory water fowl arrive from the north and settle onto the grain fields during the day and onto the water at night. When the population of the bay was undisturbed there were enough oysters and clams and menhaden to keep the water clean and enough crabs to clean up the dead. As long as we have a taste for fish caught by others our waterways will suffer.

 

[rpwillia]

On the upper Potomac

at this time of year we always get an algae bloom. I am not crazy about swimming in the river, especially up north near DC as Blue Plains (the DC treatment plant) is notorious for discharges. Crab must be better as the other day off of Quantico we had the crab traps so thick you could just about walk across the river on them.

Global warming is also an issue. My friend Tony crossing the Northwest Passage is complaining in his blog about the excessive ice this year *http://www.arcticmariner.org/#blog). How is that for an inconvenient truth. Stu is right, it is those boaters causing all the trouble.

 

[Ross]

Re: On the upper Potomac

Set out more traps catch more crabs, catch more crabs more dead fish rot on the bottom and consume oxygen. More rotting fish-more nutrients in the water and more algea. Fewer oysters-more plankton. Is there a pattern here?