A Poisoned Gulf

My day started out really well -- I headed back to Santa Rosa on a cloudy morning with no rain. The wind was still from the south east, but I headed to the north shore with my back to the wind and had a great time counting birds. There were tons on the north shore as they hid from the stiff breeze, dinoflagellate outbreak and dead fish smell. I felt like a kid in a candy store after the stormy mess of yesterday. I needed the pick me up.



Then, my boss, Mark, called. After I finished the north shore, he wanted me to head to the south shore, take pictures of at least a dozen species of dead fish and try to get a good estimate of the fish kill on this seven mile section of beach. I usually love to take pictures when I'm at work, so I was happy to oblige -- I just didn't know it was going to be such a challenge.

There were some interesting fish out there... I've only seen these when diving:




There were tons of eels, remoras, stingrays, skates, guitarfish, redfish, drum, sergeant majors, lookdowns, pompano, catfish, ad infinitum, strewn from the sea to the high tide line. At first, I stopped to take photos of each new species, but that grew tiresome. A mile and a half into my survey, I had 2,000 dead fish, a runny nose and eyes that were so blurry and toxin-burnt I could hardly see. I stopped every minute or two to clear my eyes. I could barely see to drive, let alone count dead fish. I had to pry my eyes open, one at a time. I rode with one hand steering and revving the ATV, the other shielding my open eye, alternating between them. This was quite a challenge! After two miles, I thought I was going to have to stop --- I kept envisioning the road crew finding my dead body washed in the morning tide. I considered giving up two days in a row.



As I was about to call it quits and head back to the air-conditioned fire cache with my less insane colleagues, I completely lost the ability to see, even with open eyes. I was praying as I drove, hoping I could at least find the road as I didn't want to hit the Gulf of Mexico. The clear green water seemed as poisonous as anti-freeze today. As I was contemplating all of this, I noticed a steep tilt on my brand new ATV -- my left half was two feet lower than my right. In my brevetoxin blindness, I had driven off an erosion bluff from the night before. I think I actually cursed! The new Honda Rancher only had 14 hours drivetime, and I imagined Mark would kill me. Thankfully, the ATV was fine and I got a good shot of adrenaline, in addition to some emergency attention from my cadre of guardian angels -- I have dozens as I need them so often!

The adrenaline rush got me through the rest of the beach, though I learned to take breaks every mile or so to drive to the north shore, breathe a little and rinse my seething eyes with bottled water. It was a tortuous day, but I got the job done. Imagine how ticked I was when I got back to the office and they were complaining because they had a hard time walking through the humid forest! No sympathy from me on that one -- no one even asked how I was after my second day immersed in dinoflagellate sea spray and brevetoxin. Cough, cough, wheeze, wheeze. Guess I know who my friends aren't...

I'm sure I under counted tremendously due to the difficulty I had with my vision in the toxic air, but I think my estimate is at least in the right ball park -- my final tally was 22,470 dead fish.



Tomorrow is another day -- I get to count Perdido Key!