Category: Gulf of Mexico

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast

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It was a stormy day but the dramatic clouds and wind added to the rugged beauty of my visit to Gulf Islands National Seashore. I visited Ft. Pickens and Perdido Key areas and both places were jazzed with contract employees working to clean beaches. Workers were even using brooms to clean areas. I was very impressed.

Least terns were nesting on the open sand, seemingly content with their newly hatched babies. Pelicans foraged offshore. It was a wonderful visit to these pristine areas.

Then I arrived back in Alabama. Less than 10 miles from the super-busy-bees in the National Seashore, Gulf State Park beaches at Alabama Point were covered in tar balls the size of my fist. And worse, an oily sheen covered the surface and oil mousse was washing on shore.

I traveled another 5 miles or so to the beach pavilion at Gulf State Park and when I arrived at the end of the boardwalk, the hot, heavy smell of diesel hit me. It was so strong I could taste it on my tongue. The oily froth was thick there and I stood, choking on fumes and sobs.

So why are tar balls littering Alabama’s beaches and Florida has crews that are organized, energetic and are literally sweeping the beaches? Can someone please explain the difference?

And…WHY ARE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO SWIM ON THE BEACHES IN FRONT OF CONDOS IN GULF SHORES, ALABAMA? There was oily froth washing ashore and people were swimming in it. I suppose we can assume people are basically self-destructive or naive but is the health department so afraid of angry, hurting merchants that they turn their heads when people are being coated in oil? Come on! Let’s show some intelligent responsibility and protect those too ignorant to protect themselves. They trust ‘officials’ to keep them safe! I think their lives are worth more than their money!

Back to the Coast

Back to the Coast

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After almost two weeks away from the Gulf Coast, I’m headed back this weekend. My brother and I talked today (he lives there) and he spoke with a guy who lives two miles from Ft Morgan on the Gulf. He told of watching the Gulf die a little more every day. In front of his home he said there is hardly anything alive.

Oxygen levels measured at Ft. Morgan, Alabama, are the lowest they have ever been. A huge fish kill is expected. And so it begins….

It has been difficult being away from the unfolding disaster yet I feel I am given small periods of grace where I can come back to my mountain home, take some deep breaths and then dive back into my work in my birthplace.

I dread going back yet it is there is where my heart lies and where my mind is almost constantly. To help myself cope I visualize the well capped and clean. I see the water being cleaned and healed. I hold a space for the wildlife and plants to heal…all this in my mind and heart. Who knows if it will help the situation. But it does help me. By holding a positive vision for the future I can grasp a thread of hope for recovery, if not in my lifetime, at some point. I want my grandchildren to see the Gulf as I have known it prior to this sad event.

Sea Turtle Dreams in an Oil Spill Nightmare

Sea Turtle Dreams in an Oil Spill Nightmare

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It’s 4am and I just awoke for the second time tonight dreaming of sea turtles. In both dreams I had found a young loggerhead sea turtle with a small bit of oil on it. I cleaned it and put it in a bathtub until rescue workers arrived to further care for it.

As I looked out the window in the dream I saw a huge loggerhead sea turtle crawling up on the oil-soaked beach. This grandmother turtle was coated in oil. I ran outside to help her but by the time I got there rescue workers already had her on a stretcher taking her for cleaning and rehabilitation.

Every night I wake up with nightmares about the creatures of the Gulf Coast. Sleep hasn’t been great but tonight a therapist friend of mine was staying at my mom’s home–in the dream. He remained invisible yet I could hear him in the other room. It seems my psyche is working out my stress about this disaster by having the wildlife rescue theme tonight and implanting a live-in therapist in my dreams.

My mom and I chatted last night and she tearfully expressed her love and concern for the ocean. She said, And I don’t know it like you do. Scuba diving has given me the opportunity to claim the ocean as my first home, my true home. I have had intimate encounters with huge sea turtles, tiny arrow crabs, yellow-headed jaw fish and bicolor damselfish…to name just a few. So yes, I am taking the black cloud of oil and the colorless yet more-toxic dispersant filling the Gulf very personally. These are my friends and teachers that are dying.

April 22nd-Oil Rig Sinks, Night Dive in Curacao

April 22nd-Oil Rig Sinks, Night Dive in Curacao

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Dive #478–Dive #17 of the week in Curacao, N.A. located 12 degrees 10′ 0″ N and 68 degrees 93′ 0″ W or about 50 miles north of Venezuela. Descent time-6.57pm. Water temperature-82 degrees. Location-House Reef at Habitat Curacao. Maximum depth-42 feet. Dive time-40 minutes.

After a week of really wonderful diving with a great group of friends, I was looking forward to the night dive because I get to see things not normally seen during daylight dives. I was also dreading it because it was the last dive of the trip. I was tired because I had over 14 hours underwater during the last five days. Even with my fatigue I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to submerge just one more time.

The night fish were out hunting. The reef was alive. I was treated to seeing an octopus curled under a nice coral head. Everything was going along just fine. Then I began to taste petroleum residue in my mouth. I thought it odd as I had no experience of weird tasting air thus far in the week (not a good thing when diving, especially due to partial pressures creating an exaggerated and therefore negative and toxic effect at depth). It was so pronounced that I turned the dive and came up to a very shallow depth in case there was a problem with the air.

I started to feel awful and it wasn’t only my body that felt bad. I experienced a general feeling of unrest and despair and had absolutely no frame of reference for any of the emotions. There was no current. Navigation was easy. It was a lovely night for diving. As I surfaced I immediately felt very sick. Two weeks later I was diagnosed with pneumonia and a sinus infection from which it took me weeks to recover.

My dive buddies’ air was fine and at the surface mine was perfectly okay with no foul taste or odor. So what was the problem? My experience on the dive bugged me but I dismissed it until I returned home and learned about the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sinking on the same date I had my weird experience underwater. I began to wonder…..

I’m not suggesting I was actually tasting oil from the explosion and spill but on some level I think I must have known the ocean was in trouble. They say energy travels instantaneously, that we are all connected to each other, especially those we love the most. My experience on the night of April 22nd helped me know the truth of that.

I adore the ocean and its amazing and wonderful creatures. I feel more at home underwater than I do on dry land. I have written about my love of the saltwater environment. So when it was grievously injured, why wouldn’t I feel it? We’ve all heard experiences of people dreaming about a loved one that comes to say goodbye in the dreamtime and upon waking we discover they did, in fact, die. The night of April 22nd I knew, on some level, that the ocean was being desperately hurt. Of this truth, I have no doubt.

Red Tape Kills

Red Tape Kills

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The Coast Guard was asked to allow the Alabama Point/Perdido Pass to be boomed and closed with gate before the oil arrived. They said no. Somehow the oil slipped passed the battalion of helicopters and planes flying over the beaches and oil moved into Perdido Pass and coated Cotton Bayou with its suffocating grasp….. Then the Coast Guard approved boom and a gate over the pass.

The fire chief of Magnolia Springs, Alabama is my new hero. He and others in my hometown devised a plan using barges and boom that will hopefully protect the mouth of Weeks Bay and the two rivers and estuary that lie beyond Big Mouth, as we call it. He applied for permits and asked for help and nobody did anything except threaten to arrest him if they close the mouth.

The barges are in place and at the first sign of oil the mouth of Weeks Bay will be closed. We need MORE people like this who will recognize the absolute fact that red tape involved in disasters like this KILLS! At some point, everyday people have to go beyond what authority says is okay and do the right thing.

James Hinton, you are a man that walks his talk and isn’t afraid to do the right thing, no matter the consequences. Thank you!

Read the New York Times story about Mr. Hinton