Every summer, snow cone stands pop up, tourists arrive and seaweed and animals wash ashore almost like a Southern tradition.
See photos of some of the organisms that wash ashore locally. >>
Jesse Green wasn’t expecting anything unusual when he took off his swim trunks Tuesday after a day at the beach, but he found a surprise.
The green algae, known locally as June grass, was something new for the Iowa man. To locals, though, it’s just a part of swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We had to turn them inside out to get it all out,” Renee Hynes, Green’s girlfriend, said the next day as they walked along the beach. “It’s a nice beach, though.”
Along the shoreline this week were bits of the bright green, filmy algae along with some sargasso,the clumpy, free-floating plant prevalent in the Gulf. Those plants find their way to local waters annually alongside with other plants and sea life.
“You can expect to see quite a bit throughout the summer because of the warmer weather,” said Alexis Janosik, a marine biologist at the University West of Florida. “The wind just blows the water, so a lot of these creatures are at the mercy of the sea.
“There’s a whole community in that seaweed that you could miss if you’re not looking,” she said.
Destin Beach Safety Coordinator Joe D’Agostino said seasonal plants and animals come with the warmer water.
“We get no wind in the morning and we get a southeastern trade wind in the afternoon, which brings a lot of this here,” D’Agostino. “There’s a lot of factors, though, so it’s hard to predict what will come.”
Warmer water brings in more food, which attracts animals such as cow-nose rays, a distant relative of the sting ray that has no stinger, which have been spotted already, Janosik said.
Jellyfish are relatively common, from small stinging nettles that look like plastic globs to the distinctive blue Portuguese man-of-war.
Beachgoers rarely encounter animals that are life-threatening, D’Agostino said.
“The real danger isn’t so much for everyone who comes to the beach, just those who are allergic to jellyfish, which are usually people who are also allergic to bees,” D’Agostino said. “We don’t really have anything deadly in the Gulf, just some things that can cause discomfort and annoy you.”
Tourists likely also will see a few sea turtles and dolphins, and perhaps some pale shelled sand fleas that bury themselves in the sand.
Dave Urie, manager of the Okaloosa Island Fishing Pier, said summers have brought manatees and even a whale.
“Some years we see a lot of sea life, some years we don’t,” he said. “The same goes for the June grass. Some years it’s very abundant, other years it’s hardly noticeable. It’s hard to tell.”
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Angel McCurdy at 850-315-4432 or amccurdy@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @AngelMnwfdn.