Explore #1 Golden Threads: Endless Tears (Florida Keys: Key Largo

Website www.louiselindsay.com
Blog, louiselindsay.com/myblog.html

View large: click B l a c k M a g i c . Key Largo, FL No need to comment. Just do whatever small action you can to help - pray, write letters, help with the clean up, send donations. I really have no idea, but am sure others will be offering ideas of how to help. And please keep coming to Florida and the other Gulf states for vacations-- we will all do the best we can to work with this oil spill, to keep our beaches and waters clean. If it's really, really bad, you will find out. But otherwise, please keep planning and coming, because tourism is the mainstay of our economy here. Rumors of bad stuff hurt us as much as the bad stuff.

Such a treasured gift. The golden threads and patterns are the reflections, on the bottom of the bay, of clear water, of the sun shining on the waves at the surface, on Florida Bay, Key Largo. You can also see the sea grass growing on the bottom, and the mangrove leaves which fall and sink to the bottom and nourish the sea grass and bottom growth, which helps feed the manatees, fish, dolphins, and other sea life, and which all the birds also thrive on, and eventually we humans. For years, I have been snorkeling in the Florida Bay waters, and looking around, just as I enjoy looking around while taking a walk on land. One day I was startled to discover these glorious golden threads undulating on the sea floor bottom. They had been there all along, on sunny days, I simply had never noticed them. Other times, I take photographs, and am startled to see something new, I never had paid attention to or seen before. I do so wish I had an underwater digital camera. (PS, in 2015 I do now have one.)

This is our beautiful Key Largo mangrove-lined waters and surrounding clear water, with the beautiful reflections. All of this could be gone, killed off by the oil spill threatening so much of the southeastern U.S. The Loop Current in the Gulf will soon suck in the oil spill, and bring it down to the Florida coast, all the way down to the Keys, and then around and up the Eastern coast of Florida, now called the Gold Coast. Scientists say that it will foul the waters, bring tar balls, kill the sea life, kill possibly even the mangroves, like these, make our lovely clear waters mucky and oily and toxic. It seems not to be a matter of "if", but when. Already, dead turtles and other sea life are washing ashore along the Gulf. Louisiana, Alabama, MIssissippi and Texas also are threatened. Please say some prayers. Many people are already losing their livelihoods on the water, and probably many, many more will-- from fishermen, to restaurants which sell the seafood, to areas which depend on having beautiful water and beaches to draw tourists. This may be my last week in the Keys with clear unsullied water. Who knows if the coral reefs off the Keys can survive. I live on the bayside, which includes the back side of the reef.

Photo to follow of the beautiful mangrove trunks and roots and reflections in this lovely clear water. I've just started a new set, where I shall post my Looking at the Water series. You can see straight through the clear water. Here the lovely golden patterns on the bottom are reflections from the sun on the waves on the surface. We have worked so hard, for so many years, to try to clean up the Florida Everglades and to stave off all sorts of threats to our lovely clean waters, that nourish not only the mangroves, but also the plant life, beautiful fish, birds, crustaceans, turtles, and humans, and coral reefs and beaches. It is all already in such a fragile and delicate balance. We wait to see what will happen to our already fragile environment.

For years I have gone swimming in Florida Bay, looking at the beautiful sea life in the water: the sea grass, with scallops growing on it, the fish, all sorts of live and dead shells, leaves, algae, bits of coral, manatees, turtles, dolphins, sting rays, and even nurse sharks, hermit crabs, sponges (large and small colorful ones-- pinks, yellows and blues ), starfish, mangrove roots, mangrove seeds. I keep finding new things in the water and on the seabed floor. Several times I have encountered manatees while swimming. They are mammals, related to elephants, and their skin sort of looks like elephants' skin. They are very gentle, and sometimes have come up and "sniffed" me and even played with me in the water. There used to be sand dollars and sea urchins. Sadly, they all died off about 25 years ago. All that remains are a few of their skeletons which I collected at the time. We have had waves of algae blooms and water problems, caused by nutrient run-off somewhere into the waters of the Everglades and Florida Bay. Sugar plantations up-state dump way too many nutirients from fertlizer into the water and have caused massive problems. Late in the last century, simply opening a canal (C-111) to drain off fresh water from canals in Miami and the west of Florida that seemed to be too full, sent too much fresh water into the bay. The bay turned half fresh water, and even 10 and 30 miles from the fresh water dumping, much of the sea life died. Dead sponges and fish floated to the surface, along with dead seagrass. Fish tried to beach themselves on docks and beaches, trying to find a way to breathe. The Florida Audubon Society documented the cause of the die-offs and forced the state to plug the culprit C-111 canal. Eventually, the water returned to a healthier state after a year or so, but with many losses. There are now fewer of the huge round sponges that used to be there. Comorants have struggled to survive. In the last couple years, construction on US 1, the main highway across the water to the Keys, probably caused the huge recent algae bloom which again killed much of the sea life and turned the water to pea soup quality. Even our unusually cold winter this year caused a massive fish die-off. Still, the sea life comes back, and the water becomes clear again, but each time with less vibrancy, and fewer species. How much can it take?

Man-caused damage to our environment has been going on a long time. "The graceful wading birds of the Everglades were nearly wiped out in the late 1890s and early 1900s by what were known as plume hunters who wanted the feathers for fancy hats that sometimes turned up in the Easter Parade on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.

Outrage at the slaughter of the birds inspired the creation of the Audubon Society, a national bird protection organization now known simply as Audubon. In the early 1900s Congress and Florida outlawed the killing of the birds. Scientists say the engineers who changed the water flows in the Everglades [in the 19440's through the 1960's] had not anticipated that their work would harm the birds." But many birds died off again, and are only making a come-back in the last ten years. (From: trueslant.com/josephtreaster/2009/12/25/dry-spells-good-e... .) The sky used to be filled with water birds in the Keys and the Everglades. After they were hunted almost to extinction, the people simply thought that they had flown away elsewhere!

Having seen and treasured the beauty and richness of South Florida and its waters, I am beyond sad about the current oil spill threat. Tears and tears. Let us hope. . . Please help in any way you can.

Taken 3/8/10, Uploaded 5/5/10 , #2008, slight exposure enhancement, TS

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Taken in: United States / Florida / Key Largo (show map)

Taken on: March 8, 2010

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Sets appears in: • Honored Photographs: FP, Flickr Group FP, Contest Wins and Awards, and items published • Sunset Cove: The Life of The Sea and of People more » • Looking at Water, Expanding The Moment • Reflections • Treasures of Florida Bay and Ocean: Photo Documentation of the Before and Hopefully the Forever After • Public 2010 « less

Groups appears in: • "FRIENDS" P1/A2 • * Just One Rule [Only Land, Sky & Seascapes] (post 1~comment 1) more » • **Heart Awards** (P.1 Award 5) Open - Sweeper present • Gulf of Mexico Wildlife - Before the Oil Spill « less

Camera: Canon PowerShot A630, f/4.1, 1/800 sec, 29.2mm (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon PowerShot A630
Aperture:	f/4.1
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/800)
Focal Length:	29.2mm
Exposure Bias:	-5/3 EV
Flash:	Auto, Did not fire
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Manual
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 Windows
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