Hurricane Irma came right up through Florida on September 10th, and caused me lots of stress. I don’t live on the water, but after traveling around on land and water, I have seen all the damage to those who live or work right on the water.
Then Hurricane Maria devastated the islands, and namely Puerto Rico, but missed Florida – mostly. On land we were safe, but the seashore and waterways had to deal with high waves and tides which eroded shorelines.
The damage here from Maria came as huge waves, which the surfers loved. Rip currents and high tides meant the beaches were not safe for swimming. High tide meant no driving on the beach, as there was no beach to drive on. All this, even with Maria being almost 500 miles offshore!
The Orlando Sentinel reported on the effects of hurricane Maria on the East coast of Florida in this article – which has video of the devastation in Puerto Rico.
Yesterday we went out fishing and saw the effects of the storms ourselves. Many docks are still unusable and some are being fixed, like the docks at JB’s Fish Camp. It’s one of my picks for eating on the water in New Smyrna Beach.
As you can see the water level is super high – it was high tide, but going out. The workers were literally at water level while re-building the docks. We saw a few kayakers (JB’s rents kayaks) and people eating under the umbrella tables on the patio, but there is no place to dock a boat. Soon, I hope.
The water is muddy and murky with lots of leaves and Black mangrove seeds – green pods which look a little like lima beans.
I also saw the long Red mangrove seeds which float vertically in the water. I never knew what those odd looking things were. Mangroves are all over the backwater area where we fish. Mangroves, basically, are plants that can live in salt water. The ones we see are most likely the Black mangroves, but we must have Red too, since I see the seeds. All those green plants you see on the horizon, in my muddy water photo above, are mangroves.
In the photo above you can see a few long Red mangrove seeds on the beach with many green seeds. These were floating everywhere in the water too.
Along this island it was apparent how high the water had come. Large sections of sand were cut away and I’m guessing that some waves washed over the top of the island to the water on the other side. This is a camping island, and I found black charcoal briquets in the water too!
The tide was high when we were out fishing, which meant there were not many sandy areas or beaches to explore. We stopped on this island (which is one of my favorite to explore) and I went in search of treasure. Mostly I found oyster shells – yuk. But among a bunch of shells which were washed way up under some mangroves I did pick up a worn knobbed whelk.
I collected another larger knobbed whelk which was green and broken. It will go into my garden. Photos of the rest of my finds on another post to come.
We did catch some fish – redfish, trout and snapper – but no keepers. My son was keeping an eye out for George of Reel Time as he was staying in New Smyrna Beach to film for his fishing show. We didn’t see him, but we did have to run from a quick moving rain storm late in the day!
