Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Revelers get dose of ooh, ah, ew

Red Tide, still around more than two weeks later, makes celebrating the Fourth a bit unpleasant.

By EMILY ANTHES
Published July 5, 2005

Like most places on the Fourth of July, the Tampa Bay area was awash in red, white and blue Monday. But to the dismay of many revelers, too much of the red came from an unwanted source: Red Tide.

Many people trying to enjoy the holiday along waterfront areas were confronted with dead fish and crabs floating belly up.

The one universal complaint about the algae bloom: the smell, said passers-by, who pulled their shirts up over their noses or held napkins over their faces.

"The heat I can handle," said Andy Gauthier, who worked at the marina Monday and watched the dead fish knock up against the boats. "The smell and the throat irritation are really getting to me."

An outbreak of Red Tide, which can kill sea life and cause respiratory problems in humans, was first detected along the area's gulf beaches more than two weeks ago. But the problem has lingered.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's latest Red Tide report, issued Thursday, listed Indian Rocks Beach and the Redington Pier, both in Pinellas County, as spots with the highest concentrations of Karenia brevis , the organism responsible for Red Tide.

Dead fish were reported along the coast from Clearwater to Manatee County's Longboat Key and as far north as the Gandy and Howard Frankland bridges, according to the commission.

Many like Eduardo Amazona, 20, and his four friends hoped to spend Monday relaxing by the water along Gandy Boulevard in St. Petersburg.

But one whiff of the dead fish sent Amazona and his friends to the Tampa side of the Courtney Campbell Parkway, where hundreds of people flocked to Ben T. Davis Municipal Beach. There, the more pleasant smells of barbecue and suntan lotion reigned.

Still, Amazona couldn't forget the awful smell along the beach on Gandy Boulevard.

"It was so nasty," Amazona said, a towel slung over his tan bare shoulder. "There's fish just rotting on the shore."

Some boaters at the Vinoy Resort's marina, a main site for the Fourth of July celebration in St. Petersburg, said they watched the problem steadily worsen over the last few days.

"We're just totally astonished by it," said Frank Staffe, who has been living on a boat docked at the marina for three weeks.

Staffe, who is from Michigan and had never seen Red Tide, recounted the wide variety of dead fish, crabs and sting rays he and a friend have seen floating in the bay. Even Staffe's dog has been staying inside the boat when it's docked at the marina.

"The smell's gotten to her just like everybody else," Staffe said.

While unpleasant, Staffe said, he hasn't let the Red Tide keep him off the water.

The effects are bad at the marina, where the dead fish get trapped, but dissipate farther out in the bay, Staffe said.

Marina staff members say they tried to do what they could about the dead fish, especially given the high water traffic over the holiday weekend.

"We've have some guys who have been trying to scoop up the fish as much as they can to make things more pleasant for the guests," Gauthier said. "But it's a losing battle."

Still, many marina visitors said Monday that they had gotten used to the smell and planned to stick out by the water for the evening's fireworks over the bay.

Red Tide remained problematic in parts of the gulf beaches, too.

Trent Coggins, bar manager at Friendly Fisherman Restaurant in Madeira Beach, said Red Tide was still bothering holiday beachgoers.

His customers, most of whom are out-of-towners who had never seen Red Tide, kept complaining about eye irritation.

But the smell didn't seem to ruin anyone's Fourth of July, Coggins said Monday.

"There's not many people on the beach right now," he said, "but they're finding other things to do."

--Times staff writer Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler contributed to this report.

[Last modified July 5, 2005, 01:33:21]