Massive seaweed in the Caribbean

[lexingtonave]

I've read a few news articles regarding massive amounts of seaweed washing up on beaches in the Caribbean and Mexico. Have any recent cruisers seen this? I'll be sailing in a few months and love going to the beach. Just wondering if I'll spend my days doing something else.

[Remedy86]

I live in the Caribbean and I can definitely tell you the seaweed is everywhere!!

 

The worst part is that it stinks!

 

Going to the beach should be fine, I haven't seen too many beaches over run with it.

 

That's just around the islands I frequent m, but I hear other places are having similar issues.

[ColoradoGurl]

We visited 6 Caribbean islands last week and I only saw seaweed on one island, St Maarten. There was zero seaweed in Puerto Rico, St. kitts, Antugua, St. Lucia or Barbados. That may not be indicative of the more northern islands, but we didn't see any in those islands at all. St Maarten seemed to have a bad issue with it on the beach, but we didn't notice it so much in the water; it was there, but we weren't getting tangled in it or anything. Maybe it washes in overnight or something.

[Coralc]

Not a cruise port....but friends just returned from Cancun. They said the seaweed was awful on the beaches there and attracted flies everywhere they tried to sit.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Coralc

[bouhunter]

We're spending a week in Barbados in a few months and have tried to follow this. It's Sargassum seaweed and sounds like it's been awful this year on some islands on some beaches. Hit or miss, you don't know when or where it will be........

[bouhunter]

We visited 6 Caribbean islands last week and I only saw seaweed on one island, St Maarten. There was zero seaweed in Puerto Rico, St. kitts, Antugua, St. Lucia or Barbados. That may not be indicative of the more northern islands, but we didn't see any in those islands at all. St Maarten seemed to have a bad issue with it on the beach, but we didn't notice it so much in the water; it was there, but we weren't getting tangled in it or anything. Maybe it washes in overnight or something.

 

Unless you drove all around all those islands there's no way you can make that statement. Lots of islands this year have had some beaches perfectly clear and perfect, and somewhere else on the island it's a major issue.

Edited August 16, 2015 by bouhunter

[orville99]

There's a reason why mariners called that area the Sargasso sea. When the winds and currents are right (or wrong depending on your view), you can get Sargassum washing up on any of the islands. Even on sea days, you frequently see areas of Sargassum in the Atlantic and Caribbean basin.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

We have noticed seaweed on St Maartin almost every time we have visited.

[gram2kids]

Is this just a summer occurrence or does it also effect the waters/beaches into the fall months? Does this pose a problem if you are taking a sailing excursion that involves snorkeling? Thanks.

[cruisingbajan]

Is this just a summer occurrence or does it also effect the waters/beaches into the fall months? Does this pose a problem if you are taking a sailing excursion that involves snorkeling? Thanks.

 

Its not seasonal. Its a natural phenomenon which occurs as a previous poster said "when the currents are right or wrong". Since its mother nature, we have no idea when or if we will get the sea weed on any given day.:(

[impatientlywaiting]

Costa Maya, Mexico in March was AWFUL. It covered the beach and was thick out several feet into the water. Men with pitchforks were trying to get rid of it but no sooner had they scooped it up, then more took its place. Where the Vision was docked it was white sand beaches but nobody was out enjoying the water or beach because of the seaweed. Nasty stuff.

[SamFritz]

http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scaleFit_400/55c8d5761400002e002e2727.jpeg?cache=vxaxhelv0w

 

 

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[crabby5]

We had an excursion to Maho Beach at St Maarten on Wednesday and there was some seaweed, but nothing crazy.

[goneclear]

Yes it's true that most Caribbean islands have had an abnormal amount of sargassum sea weed washing ashore over the last couple months.

No one knows the reasons but several studies are on going.

Governments through out the region are spending a lot of money cleaning beaches.

The one tip I can share is the sea weed mostly affects the north, east and south coast lines of most islands.

If you are planning a beach day. Do your research and aim for a beach on the west coast of what ever island you are visiting.

[Kcjarvis]

http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scaleFit_400/55c8d5761400002e002e2727.jpeg?cache=vxaxhelv0w

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

WHOA!!!! That's crazy. Thanks for sharing.

 

BTW - Mullet Bay in St Marten had no seaweed 3 weeks ago

[julesbeara]

We noticed sargassum seaweed when at sea and on many Caribbean beaches during our April 2015 Jewel cruise. We had sailed in December 2014 on the Jewel and didn't see any seaweed. Few months made a lot of difference.

[robtulipe]

The seaweed on the beaches was really bad earlier this year, end of January and early February, when we stopped in Roatan, Honduras on our B2B2B western Caribbean cruises on Navigator. There wasn't any problem with this at the southern part of Seven Mile beach on Grand Cayman nor on Cozumel, which were the only other port stops we went to the beach.

 

Edited August 16, 2015 by robtulipe

[vettecruiser1]

We noticed if the beaches faces away from the Atlantic seaweed was not bad, but if beach was facing towards the Atlantic it was horrible, like cancan. Also punta cano had seaweed in mounds on the beach. Beaches facing away like seven mile and the inside of Cozumel the beaches wear fine. Also you will notice it on the sail look over rail on any sea day and you will see tons of orange floating seaweed. One day it looked like we were an ice breaker cutting a channel through it.

[Lionesss]

Two weeks ago noticed a lot of sea weed (brownish) while cruiseing at sea.

 

Little to none on Labadee, or Cozumel. Did not go near a beach on Jamaica.

 

Sea Ya

[RCCL Fan]

I don't know about you.

 

But I spend lots of time staring at the seas, and I'm noticed in recent years the seaweed is floating on the top of the oceans in long straight lines

 

It's so frequent, and seems worse each cruise I take.

[biomedbob]

If you are fishing for dolphin......you are excited to see floating seaweed.

 

That's where they are! :)

[AtlantaAlly]

I noticed a lot while actually out to sea in June. We didn't have issues at the following beaches: Dickenson Bay (Antigua), Orient Beach (St. Maarten), Rainbow Beach and Fredriksted Beach (St. Croix)

[cruisingbajan]

Just as an update as I was driving to work this morning, there was quite a bit of seaweed in the Acrra/Rockley area. When I passed there on Friday evening there was none in sight.

 

This is just an illustration of how you never know from one day to the next what mother nature will bring.

[cruising grandma]

Sargassum seaweed was thick at Orient Beach the first of July. We are leaving Sunday on Navigator and hopefully will have nice beach days at Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Falmouth.