Red Tide & No-see-ums

Cabbage Key to Sanibel Island

We made it to Sanibel Island yesterday, actually anchored just off St. James City. It was a short trip down the ICW but smelly. The red tide was really bad. We went through a lot of brown water with stinky, dead fish.

The red tide is an algae bloom that occurs naturally in Florida but they believe runoff from fertilizers in the fields causes it to accelerate to extremely high levels. Last year we had it spread all the way north of Clearwater. It caused a lot of sea creatures to die, including fish, sea snakes and dolphins. For humans, it causes respiratory distress. For Clearwater, it was detrimental to the tourist industry, resulting in a lot of lost revenue as folks found other places to holiday.

Coming down the ICW, I was coughing and hacking. The smell made me nauseated. Nick stayed below and worked on boat projects, so at least he isn’t dealing with the swollen face and respiratory issues he had last year! This year we are prepared with lots of Benadryl and an epinephrine pen on board. Fortunately, our anchorage doesn’t smell and I have only seen an odd dead fish here so it has been quite pleasant.

The evening became really windy, with wind speeds up to 20 knots. We are secure with our new 73 pound Rocna Vulcan anchor and all chain rode. We closed the front canvas and enjoyed the evening breeze. Before the winds picked up, we were dealing with bugs.

No-See-ums Attack

No-see-ums are nasty little biting insects that go right through our window screens. They LOVE me for some reason but seem to leave Nick alone. I have a million bites, I think in all the places I missed with the bug spray! The only thing I have found that will keep them away is Avon Skin so Soft. It contains picaridin, which is one of the few substances the little buggers apparently don’t like. If only I could figure out why they don’t like him…