MissyP:I think Shaka is pulling your leg... He lives here in SoCal... All you have to do is look at the ocean & see it's lovely coffee color instead of the usual blue water.
Shaka was just showing off his new...uh...shoes.
night dive in red tide
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Shaka was just showing off his new...uh...shoes.
spectrum:
One of my favorite dive sites is experiencing the same phenomina. It's not real fun to be on the beach around an area of high concentration.. it gives you the feeling of having asthema. The link below is to Mote Marine Labratory in Sarasota, they're studying the red tide blooms in FL to learn more about them. The good news is they've learned that our nearly 5 year persistant outbreak of red tide is caused by water run off containing fertilizer biproducts (namely nitrogen, the primary feeder of the algae).. the bad news is....well, the same as the good news but from the other side of the coin.
I'm not familiar with SoCal demographics.. is this a natural phenomina occuring at normal pace (here its every 3 to 5 years for a two or three weeks) or is it something that has been given a bit of assistance?
http://isurus.mote.org/~mhenry/rtupdate.phtml
http://isurus.mote.org/~mhenry/rtupdate.phtml
pete340
Contributor
Kriterian:
Finned swimmers, that is.
Kriterian
Guest
MissyP:
Doh! I should have known better. Better safe than sorry when it comes to providing answers to people's questions...even the ones that are sarchastic 99% of the time, hehe.
ShakaZulu
Contributor
Kriterian:
Nah, I was referring to red-tide in San Diego, haven't seen it here......I should have frased the question better, but thanks for the in-depth response.
ShakaZulu:
Apparently it's not always that visble. I was skindiving here in southern Maine last weekend and the visibility was unusually good. No apparent redness but there was some normal turbidity.
Last year when the bloom hit it was mid July as I recall (I'd have to check my log to be sure) it had the appearance of hong hairs with soap scum attached, kinda gross. I ran into it all the way north to Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor. It subsided in late August. At least I think this crap was Red Tide it's arrival and departure coincided with the Red Tide reports.
I will be watching for it tomorrow morining on our first OW check-out dives.
Pete
anemone
Contributor
Kriterian:
see this--->http://www.whoi.edu/redtide/whathabs/whathabs.html
or am i on the same planet?
anemone:
Paragraph 3 of your link seems to confirm Kriterian's statement.
Excerpt from link:
"Unfortunately, a small number of species produce potent neurotoxins that can be transfered through the food web where they affect and even kill the higher forms of life such as zooplankton, shellfish, fish, birds, marine mammals, and even humans that feed either directly or indirectly on them."
It also leads me to think that the "hairy colonies" I've seen are not red tide but some other sort of bloom that thrives in similar conditions.
