Whew. Two Gulf of Mexico hurricanes in two weeks behind us, and I’ve got to admit I’m pretty darn happy that the imaginary Key West Bubble provided safe haven for the island. That and perhaps the candles lighted at the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto at St. Mary’s Basilica. Either way, we can breathe easier until the next one.
It occurred to me last week as I did the usual storm prep and gathered up outside stuff that would become inside stuff that Key West didn’t stink. I could scurry out the front door without pausing to take a deep breath and hold my nose.
No stink. Nary a whiff of eggs gone bad. No rotting sargassum to clog the nose and demand a retreat indoors. In fact, if I remember correctly, there was only one day this summer when I sniffed delicately, nodded my head and proclaimed sargassum season had arrived.
But it didn’t. Well, at least not at the record-setting levels predicted in April. At that point, every researcher agreed: It ain’t gonna be a nice summer for beachgoers, much less asthma sufferers.
On April 6, in my annual sargassum prediction column, I wrote: “Lurking off the horizon is a record-breaking sargassum bloom, one experts worry could be the worst we’ve seen. It’s out there floating our way. The same was true last year, but the stars aligned and an assortment of storms, winds and currents kept much of the sargassum, though not all, from beaching. That saved Key West and the Keys from a devastating 2023 summer season.
“We’ve got a 50-50 shot this sargassum season 2024. That blob could fall victim to nature’s vagaries and be a non-issue — or a goodly portion of the 6.5 million tons of sargassum could overwhelm the Keys and our Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico neighbors.”
That sargassum bloom never made it to shore. Oh, sure, there’s some lying along the rocky beach at Fort Zach and along Smathers and Higgs, but the mounds of rotting algae we’ve seen in past years never materialized. Even the water off South Beach, which often looks nasty, wasn’t quite as much like chocolate pudding.
So, what happened to the sargassum in Key West?
Why, if that massive sargassum mat is out there, didn’t we see it on our beaches? Let’s go back to the vagaries of nature for a minute.
Sargassum is a floating mass of life. Unlike seagrass, which actually roots into the sand and stays put, sargassum is algae that loves traveling in groups, the bigger, the better. Floating gently atop the waves, it’s home for all manner of young fish and a nursery for sea turtles. For years the babies lie tucked in on a floating rug wandering the Caribbean Sea and the waters off South America.
Sargassum only beaches itself if the winds, currents and waves align just right to push it onto the sand, where it rots, gets gooey, stinks to high heaven and generally disgusts humans who prefer sand and water that look like the marketing pictures. That’s what happened in 2022, when not even the truly clueless wanted to wade into the ocean.
So what happened this year? Well, think hurricanes and tropical storms, including those that ripped along the eastern shores of Mexico and into the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, a quick glance at the September and October sargassum tracking maps shows virtually no sargassum masses in the gulf or in the eastern Caribbean. The eastern Atlantic is pretty benign as well. The masses are gone with the storms.
We’re unlikely to see much sargassum along our Keys beaches for the rest of the year, and certainly not until next spring, when we’ll once again watch the blooms gather for another growth spurt using the warm and overly nutrient-rich ocean waters.
That’s the challenge with even the best scientific predictions. We can use the most up-to-date equipment and the best human and AI minds to give us a heads-up on what’s coming. Then we have to sit back and let nature decide what the results will be. Doesn’t mean the science was wrong. It simply means Mother Nature had information we didn’t.
I take the forecasts seriously, whether it’s for sargassum beaching or storm surge. Sure, we’re all glad when summer doesn’t stink or when the Key West Bubble wards off a hurricane. People who didn’t pay attention to the National Hurricane Center, which DID get the track right, even get to whine that the forecasters “got it wrong again,” which is shorthand for “You made me miss my vacation, you jerks. I’m never listening to you again.”
But, you know what? The forecasts and the predictions were spot on until the vagaries of nature decided otherwise. Prepare for the worst. Hope for the best. And enjoy today’s sargassum- and hurricane-free beaches.
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