Pat’s Wildways: Sargassum overload

We knew that sargassum weed had taken over Placencia, Belize’s normally pristine white sandy beaches, but what the hey? We go to the same five-room hotel there every few months for a couple of weeks at a time, and we weren’t stopping now.

But still, it was a shock to fly over the sea from Belize City International Airport to Placencia in the Maya airline puddle jumper and see the large mats of floating yellow vegetation rolling in toward the beach. And my oh my, when we landed in Placencia, right away the smell hit us: that distinctive combination of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide gas from rotting marine life. These fumes are more than annoying for those with respiratory problems and cause damage to electronics, like televisions and cell phones. When we arrived at our home away from home, the sight itself was daunting. There was floating sargassum weed pushed up against the beach and extending for many yards into the water, and heaps and mounds of it already rotting on the beach. No swimming here this trip, that’s for sure. You can’t even get to the water without wading forever through itchy seaweed studded with still-active nematocysts (stinging cells) detached from dead jellyfish. No thanks.

Like many things in our rapidly degrading natural world this bloom in sargassum weed throughout the Caribbean is another primarily human-created mess. Years ago, when I studied marine biology, I learned about the natural mats of sargassum weed that form and float out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (“the Sargasso Sea”), where there is no land, and these mats form the "golden rainforest of the High Seas.” Sargassum out in the ocean provides habitat, food and shelter for a myriad of marine organisms that depend on it. Sea turtles, for instance, that leave our Fernandina beaches as hatchlings spend months thereafter sheltered in this weed, resting, eating and growing. It is crucial to their survival.

But enter “the hand of man.” These days the runoff of nutrients and fertilizers from massive agricultural schemes up the Amazon and Mississippi Rivers and elsewhere reaches the sargassum and causes it to rapidly bloom and enlarge. And the higher ocean temperatures from human-caused global warming just exacerbate the situation. Add in the changing current patterns and these days lots of this floating seaweed gets pushed into the Caribbean and ends up on sea-facing beaches throughout the area. Like Placencia, Belize.

Cleaning up this mess is a problem far larger than the Town Council of Belize, the local residents and Belize in general. In years past, when less sargassum moved ashore, people on the beach with shovels and scooping devices and flatbed trucks took care of most of it every day as it washed up, but now this event seems hopeless to remedy from shore. Mexico has deployed Navy vessels to trap and remove the floating weed before it hits tourist beaches with some success. But Belize lacks this resource.

Some entrepreneurs have designed plans to replicate Mexico’s approach, but at high cost and now just on paper. But enter Gayo, the local proprietor of Evolution Beach with a boat, an idea and a team to actually make something happen. He has rigged up a system of floating buoys that stops the sargassum and then a system to haul it into bags and take it further away in an area where currents carry it back to sea. If more people help him with labor and gas money and more boats in play, it should help.

I can’t say that the sargassum situation has ruined our stay. Not at all! Our hotel has welcomed us with wide arms, a decorated bedroom and the friendship we look forward to. It is Carnival season here and the locals are dressing and dancing and parading down the street, and we happily join in the excitement, sargassum be damned. I can swim anywhere at home but where else can I hobnob with such a fun group of locals celebrating their heritage! It is low season here anyway, and the sargassum situation has scared away many would-be tourists. There are virtually no tourists here. But we no longer are tourists. We belong!

And nature is helping now too. In the week we have been here, the buildup on the beach is diminishing. Normally, the sargassum that comes in is long gone by now, but now maybe this is starting to happen. And this morning I see no yellow mats still floating in. Hey, maybe I can still take a dip in the sea in front of our hotel. But if not, so be it. This may be our best trip to Placencia ever!

Pat Foster-Turley, Ph.D., is a zoologist on Amelia Island. She welcomes your comments and nature observations. Patandbucko@yahoo.com