sargassum in the Caribbean | The Blacktip Times

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July 27, 2018 · 8:19 am

Sargassum Scooper To Protect Blacktip Island Beaches

Sargassum seaweed has covered Blacktip Island’s beaches in recent months, causing many tourists to cut short or cancel their visits. A group of local scientists are testing their ‘Dr. Port’s Sargasstic Super Scooper’ seaweed collector off the island’s west coast in hopes it will alleviate the problem. (photo courtesy of Jonathan Wilkins)

A Blacktip Island civic group has deployed a giant seaweed vacuum device off the Caribbean island’s west coast in an attempt to control the mounds of sargassum seaweed washing up on beaches upwind of the island’s resorts.

“The sea’s choked with sargassum these days,” Blacktip Island Chamber of Commerce president Jay Valve said. “The beaches’re knee-high in rotting seaweed. Tourists can’t get to the water, and the stench’ll gag a maggot.

“It’s so thick in the water it’s even clogging seawater intakes on dive boats,” Valve said. “Blacktip Haven’s Sea Monkey blew an engine overheating from the stuff.”

The device’s inventors have dubbed it the Dr. Port’s Sargasstic Super Scooper.

“It’s basically a smaller version of that machines that’s skimming plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, just modified for seaweed,” Tiperon University-Blacktip engineering chair Sally Port said. “Giant, floating booms go out 50 feet on either side and funnel the sargassum into a central processing chamber.

“We tweaked the basic design with parts scrounged at the dump,” Port said. “Its heart and soul are a couple of scooter engines, a refrigerator compressor and the drum from a big washing machine. It grinds the seaweed into micro pellets, combines them with salt pulled from the seawater to make them negatively buoyant and shoots them back out into the ocean.”

Island environmentalists worry the Scooper will create more problems than it solves.

“That’s literally tons of detritus they’re releasing into the sea,” Blacktip Island Greenpeace spokesperson Harry Pickett said. “If even a fraction of that settles on the reefs, it could smother the coral and wipe out the underwater ecosystem.

“As stinky as the rotting seaweed is, that’s better for the island and its economy than dead reefs,” Pickett said. “This island lives or dies with the scuba industry. No coral reefs, we’re screwed.”

Scientistss say that worry is unfounded.

“The preliminary models we ran showed the macerated vegetative matter should actually nourish the coral,” marine biology professor Ernesto Mojarra said. “In theory, it should make the reefs healthier than ever.

“Now, all that particulate matter will kill the visibility. No denying that,” Mojarra said. “But the models suggest the increased nutrient levels will attract manta rays, so, long term, Blacktip should benefit from even more scuba-diving guests.”

Island officials say they hope to expand the program soon.

“We’ve deployed the Scooper on a slow sweep upwind of all the resorts to maximize its effect,” island mayor Jack Cobia said. “That protects Blacktip’s major population centers, but it’s short term.

“The next step is to extend the gizmo’s booms far enough to protect the whole west coast,” Cobia said. “If it works well, we plan to export the things, too. Ideally, this could save the entire Caribbean tourism industry.”

Mount Sargassumore Rises Over Blacktip Island

In a two-pronged effort to clean sargassum from the beaches and to create the highest point in the Tiperon Islands, Blacktip Island residents are urged to bring beached seaweed to a central collection point, dubbed ‘Mount Sargassumore’ atop the island’s southern bluff. (photo by Wendy Beaufort/Blacktip Times staff)

Blacktip Island civic leaders this week began building the highest point in the Tiperon Islands by collecting washed up sargassum and turtle grass into one mound, ‘Mount Sargassumore,’ on top of the Caribbean island’s southern bluff..

“A couple of years ago Tiperon started billing itself as the highest point in the Tiperons to attract tourists worried about being on a low-lying island during hurricane season,” Blacktip Island Chamber of Commerce president Whitey Bottoms said. “Turned out, that was great marketing. Their hotels are full all through the summer.

“Problem is, their gain’s been Blacktip’s loss,” Bottoms said. “Here it is mid-July and our resorts are half empty. We’re barely scraping by. Most places are closing for August and September.”

Island Council members suggested a seaweed mountain to solve multiple problems.

“That southwest wind’s been piling sargassum knee-deep on the beaches,” mayor Jack Cobia said. “Resort guests can’t get to the water, the smell could choke a goat, and the sand flies eat you alive.

“We have to haul the stuff somewhere, so we’re killing two birds with one stone,” Cobia said. “The beaches get cleared, and all the seaweed goes to one central spot to form our new mountain.”

Residents say the growing hillock has become a source of island pride.

“Mount Sargassumore will put Blacktip Island on the map,” said long-time resident Ginger Bass. “The piled seaweed dries and rots, so it’s a bit of two feet upward, one foot back, but we’re committed to making this a reality.

“Everyone’s bringing whatever seaweed they can, be it by the truckload or the bucketful,” Bass said. “The slightest handful may be the very bit that keeps our bars in business.

The project is not without its detractors.

“We live directly downwind of that monstrosity and you can’t imagine the stench,” resident Frank Maples said. “Even inside with the air conditioning on, it makes your eyes water. Everything we eat or drink tastes like rotted fish, and as soon as we step outside the midges nearly carry us away.

“A mountain is fine, but why not down south where no one lives?” Maples said. It’s island politics, plain and simple. Booger Bottoms didn’t want the reek chasing customers away from his Last Ballyhoo bar. On Blacktip, it pays to be a Bottoms.”

Despite the criticism, officials are optimistic about the project’s success.

“The goal is 200 feet of elevation by the end of July, and we may reach that with days to spare,” Whitey Bottoms said. “Then we’ll put a flashing light on top as a navigational beacon. And for the safety of low-flying aircraft.”