BHB on Undercurrent

[Catito]

What is the fishing waste like underwater at BHB?
My local site, somewhat similar to BHB has a plethora of fishing trash underwater.

Exactly. What is it with fishermen and their fricken garbage? At the bridge and any body of water. They park, eat, throw their greasy fast food wrappers, coke cans, and beer cans on the ground, add in some tangled fishing line and leave.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I am tied of that kind of “entitlement.”

OT: That reminds me of an old neighbor when I lived in my previous house. He let his dog out which would roam the neighborhood and leave a nice pile in a neighbor's yard. Sometimes that neighbor was me. I was pretty sick and tired of it fairly quickly. Asked him if he'd mind keeping his dog out of my yard. His response was a grunt. Thought that was the end of it. Next day, that dog is taking a dump, so I tie it to the post in my backyard and I call animal control (only 3 active officers in King County). That afternoon, he comes by and asks me if I've seen his dog. I say sure, I tied it up in my backyard and called AC. He just flew off the handle, saying his dog had more rights in the neighborhood, including MY PROPERTY, than I did because the dog has lived in the neighborhood longer than me.

Some people are beyond unreasonable.

Animal control came by ten minutes later. I explained the situation and how the dog owner said his dog had more rights than me. "We'll see about that." So she goes to his home and while I was doing yardwork, it looked like a fairly one way conversation. Every day after that, he was walking his dog on a leash. He hated me, but all the other neighbors absolutely loved me. I don't understand why they tolerated his jackarsery for so long.

 

[Pipehorse]

Hey, guys, come back to Earth. BHB is a city park.

Actually it is a Palm Beach County Park located inside the City of Rivera Beach, nevertheless you make an excellent point.

 

[kelemvor]

From the March 27 Undercurrent online update. I have sent an email to Julia Botel, consider doing so

Time to Act, Fellow Divers. Beneath Blue Heron Bridge at Riviera Beach, FL, on the west side of Singer Island, is a unique dive site thanks to the plethora of unique critters and macro, including sea stars, eels, seahorses, octopus, nudibranchs, flying gurnards, jawfish, and frogfish, and even eagle rays, turtles, and manatees visit. However, it's also a popular location for anglers who like to cast a line from the bridge. Jeff Nelson, a dive instructor with nearly 30 years’ experience, says a handful of fishermen are deliberately trying to hook divers by putting a fishing line in the water with a hook that has no bait. While some fishermen want 24-hour-a-day access to the bridge, Jim Abernethy, who owns Jim Abernethy's Scuba Adventures feels there should be no fishing from the bridge, and divers should be allowed to dive under the bridge at all times. This is a unique underwater environment; fishermen should not be allowed to farm it. Let them fish off the shore, if at all. Riviera Beach District 4 Councilwoman Dr. Julia Botel, is trying to settle the dispute. She needs to know that divers from hundreds of miles away make the trek just for those dives and help boost the local economy. All of Florida’s, unique underwater habitats are disappearing, and this is indeed one to preserve. Email her and tell her not to allow any animals to be taken from beneath the bridge, by fishermen or divers: jbotel@rivierabeach.org

I agree completely. I've been hooked by one of those assholes on the bridge. Wish he had fallen off so I could have gotten ahold of him.

Here's what I wrote to her:
Dr. Botel,

I’m a Floridian who frequently visits your district to dive under blue heron bridge. For the past eight years I’ve driven across the state once or twice every month to enjoy the privilege. When in the area I stay at local hotels, and frequent local restaurants and businesses. I’m writing to ask you to support Jim Abernathy’s initiative to end fishing from the bridge. Although frequently divers and anglers can easily co-exist, it doesn’t work at this location. I’ve been hooked deliberately by an angler who hauled me to the surface. By the time I got out of the water and notified the police, the perpetrator was long gone. Even though I’m not a resident in your district, I do regularly bring tourist dollars to it. Please help keep what is renowned as the United States best dive site a safe one.

 

[Pipehorse]

What is the fishing waste like underwater at BHB?
My local site, somewhat similar to BHB has a plethora of fishing trash underwater.

There is a lot of fishing waste and normal assortment of bottles, cans, and plastic under the bridge. However, if every diver removed just one lead weight, one hook, one bottle, one can, a few feet of fishing line, or one errant piece of plastic per dive the place would be pristine. Unfortunately to many divers, talk the talk when it comes to conservation, but don't follow through on diving the dive (so to speak) when it comes to conservation.

 

[kelemvor]

There is a lot of fishing waste and normal assortment of bottles, cans, and plastic under the bridge. However, if every diver removed just one lead weight, one hook, one bottle, one can, a few feet of fishing line, or one errant piece of plastic per dive the place would be pristine. Unfortunately to many divers, talk the talk when it comes to conservation, but don't follow through on diving the dive (so to speak) when it comes to conservation.

I would never remove a bottle or can from BHB. There are a lot of octopuses who live in them. Actually I'm not 100% sure about cans, but I long ago lost count of how many times I've seen or photographed an octo in a bottle there. Fishing stuff could be better cleaned up though. It would be a great site for a Dive for Debris. I'll see if Project Aware has a suggestion box.

 

[uncfnp]

Hook and line trash is a problem. Unfortunately a lot of the light, loose debris like plastic bags is just washed out with the tide. Then there is the intentional trash placed by divers/organizations such as the shopping carts.

 

[Pipehorse]

Divers can't hurt the fishermen, so the 2 sides are not equal.

Little if anything in life is fair and equal. Try reversing the situation. Imagine showing up to dive on a Saturday morning where high tide is at 9:00am. You decide to show up a 7:00am for a decent parking spot and to have your gear all set up for an hour before entry of high tide. But when you pull in the parking lot at 7:00am, there are so few spaces left you have to park all the way over on the north side of the parking lot. When you get out of your car on closer inspection you see that the fishing pier is lined with fisherman every six feet, the east span bridge has fisherman every six feet(both north and south) and because the lifeguards are not there yet, fisherman are every six feet along the beach. Every park bench and table is occupied with fisherman chatting and all their gear. And can't get near a shower because there are fisherman meticulously rinsing their gear. Also the owner of that empty lot on the southeast side has decided to open it up just so fisherman can be there.

Perhaps it might give an appreciation of how fisherman, beach goers, and all the other individuals there to do something else besides scuba diving might feel about the hordes of scuba divers that descend upon the place two hours before high tide? Should a resident fisherman from Rivera Beach not be able to fish there, so that some individual from the state of Oregon, Maine, Alaska, Montana, Indiana, or Wisconsin(all license plates I have seen there) wants to dive? While there might be some pissed off malicious fisherman, the vast majority of them are there to enjoy a public natural resource just like the divers. Abernathy's suggestion of fishing offshore smacks of entitlement of somebody who can easily access offshore because he owns boats. The whole point of why almost anybody, be it fisherman, beach goers, divers, kayakers, etc. goes to that park is ease of accessibility. Limiting the access of one group for the benefit of another group is terrible public policy. Abernathy's view is completely subjective and mired in his own self interest, maybe that's something to keep in mind.

 

[Pipehorse]

I would never remove a bottle or can from BHB. There are a lot of octopuses who live in them. Actually I'm not 100% sure about cans, but I long ago lost count of how many times I've seen or photographed an octo in a bottle there. Fishing stuff could be better cleaned up though. It would be a great site for a Dive for Debris. I'll see if Project Aware has a suggestion box.

Yes many of the older cans and bottles become homes for critters. However one can easily see the difference between a recently disposed of can or bottle, than one buried in the sand with barnacles growing on it. My whole point is, that Dive for Debris should not be necessary given the amount of aggregate bottom time spent there.

 

[Pipehorse]

I feel pretty strongly about this. Trying to snag me with a fishing hook is attempted murder. Coexistence of divers and fisherpeople with malice in mind is not possible. The two need to be separated in space or time, preferably. For example, most of the divers are there at HT +/- 1 hour. Let the fisherpeople have the rest of the day, but NOT during that time. Put them on the old bridge, even then.

Your key phrase is "fisherpeople with malice". The majority of fisherpeople are not acting with malice, they are just trying to enjoy the resource same as the divers.