Avoid Venice Diving this Weekend!!

[KBulla]

Hey, All!

Just got word from Cbulla and Reefguy that there is some NASTY red tide up at Venice Beach right now... They were planning a dive this morning, got up there, and were greeted with washed up grouper, crabs, sea snakes, sea robins, puffers, an eel, etc, etc... Sad, isn't it???

Just wanted to get the word out in case anyone else was thinking about heading that way in the next few days.

Thanks!

Kris

 

[K Mejean]

Damn that sucks. I hate to hear it.

 

[CBulla]

I don't have to say much except it was nasty! It was like driving down Lovers Key all over again (the outbreak there a few months ago). You could see the cloud before even hitting the beach really and once the wind changed it was like being pepper sprayed.. coughing, burning eyes.. We went in state to a lake I know of for training dives and did something completely different...

 

[sneakysnook]

I've seen some pics for some guys that fish down in Venice and it looks really bad. From the sounds of things it will not be going away any time soon.

 

[CBulla]

I wouldn't think its clearing up this weekend or next.. the dozens of small grouper, snapper, porcupine fish, blue crabs, some stone crabs, the chain link eel, sea snakes , spade fish, perch, pin fish, shiners, clusters and clusters of sea robins, and probably some I've missed in the carnage...

The red tide bloom looked like a red/brown oil slick that spanned from the beach to well past the sand bar, snaking around. The birds were picking at the white dots in the water plucking the eyes out of the fresh kills.

In the midst of it all, we did find a turtle nest that appeared to might have hatched through the night. I called it in to FWC and gave them the ID number. Its hard to tell, the crab foot prints out there look about the same as the little crawlers flipper marks, but the nest appeared soft in the middle, so maybe there is some hope that the little loggerhead pringles may have made it past the barrier of death. What a nasty first experience for them to endure if they did hatch, huh?