Diving Venice Beach In June - Red Tide

[Dnaber]

Spending a week in Sanibel the second week in June. Planning on diving Venice during that time but I'm concerned about what I reading about the red tide. Should I be concerned?

 

[kelemvor]

Red tides come and go. Seems hard for me to believe they are accurately able to predict a red tide incident over a month away. Even if they can, I've done boat dives (wetsuit) in red tide. It was a little gross at the surface, but otherwise no big deal. After about 10' deep it was not really noticeable. Nobody in my group got sick or anything like that. Shower off asap to get rid of the stinky.

I'm not sure I'd do a venice shore dive in red tide, mainly because the sites are so shallow that you may never get much deeper than the dead stuff.

Now that I own a drysuit, I'd probably use that if I did another dive in red tide. Those doc's diving earplugs seem like they could be a good idea to help prevent ear infection. Not that any of us got any kind of infection from the dive.

 

[SOFDiver]

There is no way to predict red tide occurrences, although FWC does a very good job of monitoring and reporting outbreaks. The major issue with red tide on people is the effects on the respiratory system when algae gets atomized and into the air. The effects on marine life are quite different as the algae steals O2 from the water, and fish that cannot escape die of asphyxiation. We conduct dive operations off Venice during red tide outbreaks with little trouble, and often winds on the water mitigate issues as well. I would offer that red tide is the least of your concerns diving hear in Venice. If you like you can call our shop, and we would be happy to give you the latest conditions as we are on the water almost every day.