The Continuous Development

It is now 10:24 pm and Okaloosa Island Beach is being closed off. It is now considered hazardous to your health due to the aroma of the oil. Tar balls are continuing to wash up onto the beach, just like I predicted that would be during high tide. If you look out onto the ocean, you can see the oil coagulating on the top. Hopefully, tomorrow morning I can get one last look at how the oil spill is developing.

(Marine animals are suffering in the picture below)

(The picture below is from nwfdailynews.com)

53% of Americans disagree with the way Obama is handling this and I do not doubt that that number will continue to rise if no actions are taken. Cleaning up the shore to make it look more appealing does not mean that it is not there, it doesn't make it just go away. It has gotten to the point where announcements are being made about calling 311 if you see any animals in danger. By tomorrow morning, I would not be surprised if the beach is covered.

The news team stopped by around 5:30 pm, which made sense as to why the beach was cleaned by the time my mom and I dropped by after dinner. Once again, this proves that Americans are being uninformed about what is really going on. The only thing that news video showed was dime sized tar balls with a clear ocean in the background. Does something seem wrong with the fact that they are so willing to clean the beach up before a news team comes by for a story but they are not willing to clean this up to save the living conditions of the fish, animals, fishermen, and homeowners?

About 2 hours before the beach was closed due to its condition. The link is attached, pictures are provided from 5 miles out.

Start praying.

http://nwfdailynews.emeraldcoastphotoswest.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=1025615&CategoryID=28208&ListSubAlbums=0

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articles/okaloosa-30053-villani-island.html

Okaloosa Island Pier

One of the things you must do when visit the beach is visit the pier. All the different types of fish you see are just amazing. On our visit, we were able to see large sting rays eating fisher's bait, barracudas lurking in the water waiting for fish to be thrown back in, dolphins jumping in the sunset, and little sharks. Or should I say, things we thought were sharks, we were in for an awakening.

My family and I overheard a woman telling her children that there were sharks. So of course, we hurried over to where the woman was and looked over the edge. Sure enough, there were 'little sharks'. In my opinion, I would not have said they were little. Anything over 4 feet is considered a big fish to me. As time went by, we stayed there watching the 'sharks' and people came by to see what we were looking at.

One of the fisherman, who spends most of his days on the pier fishing, came over to ask what we were looking at.

I pointed down near the pillars and said that we were looking at the group of 5 or 6 little sharks. He looked over the edge and laughed. I looked at him a little confused at what he thought was funny. I looked at me and said "honey, those aren't little sharks, those are the little fish that STICK to the sharks". If you look closely to the pictures below, you can see them.

That thought scared me. I looked back over the edge at the 4 foot long strange fish and remembered the old days of watching Discovery Channel. I pictured the sharks with those so-called 'little fish' attached to the bellyside of the shark. They did not look quite that big when I saw it on television. I looked back over the edge, and come to my surprise, a huge shark was next to all those fish. I called the guy back over and he looked down. While pulling his hat back, he assured me that those were the sharks he was talking about, the Tiger Shark, which can grow up to 16 feet in length. That thought made me shiver and I decided to go to a different side of the pier. Come to my attention, they were not that easy to get away from. The further down the pier I went, the more I saw them. I was also informed by an air traffic control man that sharks swim closer to the shore than people think.

I found a group of fishermen and decided watching them would take my mind off of the sharks.

I wound up next to a young man and things seemed pretty calm. I was looking over the edge and found myself looking at long, slick fish. I asked the man next to me what they were and he told me that I was looking at a group of Barracudas and that they like to wait for people to unhook a fish and throw it back in.

Moments later, the guy that I originally came to watch was surronded by a crowd of people and reeling in with all his strength. About 15 minutes later, he finally reeled in a fish called the Cobia.

All in all, I must say that it was an interesting visit and you never know what you'll learn or the things you'll find on your visit.

Clean Up Clean Up Everybody Everywhere

So, in response to my earlier post, I must say that I am impressed. The beach was covered in tar balls when we walked back up to our condo around 2:30 and by the time we were dressed and ready for dinner on the local beach hotspot, the oil on the shore was cleaned up and people were back to swimming. If you looked out onto the ocean, you saw 3 or 4 boats sucking up the oil from the water, and some even pulled out the dolphins from earlier and cleaned them up.

We ate dinner at Floyd's Shrimp House right on the beach. The food was delicious! I had shrimp alfredo and you could tell that the shrimp was fresh. And of course, my family had to order a dish of their fresh sushi, which was also to die for. If you ever visit Okaloosa Island, stop by for a wonderful dinner.

My brother and father went back to the pier to fish while my mom and I walked along the beach. There were still quite a few tar balls but not near as much as there were earlier in the day. I have to admit, I am afraid to walk down to the beach after high tide tonight.

Luckily, the shores were clean enough to take family pictures, and since I love photography, I also went to the liberty of taking a few pictures of the beach. I am just happy that things cleared up for out last night. I went ahead and posted my favorite pictures. Hopefully, I will have some more photos in the morning.

From Vacation To Disaster

When my family and I first arrived here on Okaloosa Island, everything was more than we expected. We had a beautiful condominium, handfuls of tourist attractions, and a more than gorgeous beach with white sand, clear waters, and a beautiful sunset.

I am originally from Florida and the beach has always been one of my favorite places to visit, and because I lived here for almost 10 years of my life, I was hesitant to step foot in the water because the temperature of the water in June is usually a little chilly. I stepped one foot in and the water was warm. I was a little confused by this but didn't really think much of it. The second thing that really through me off was the color of the seaweed, it was lime green, almost the same color as if you visited a sushi restaurant and ordered seaweed salad. Also, the seaweed was not all connected, it was chopped up and scattered across the water.

By the second day, the water was still warm but the seaweed had all been washed up to the shore. Everything seemed to be going great. We all took a walk down to the pier and saw sharks, barracudas, and even had the experience of watching a man catch a fish called a Cobia. Which is supposedly very delicious.

The third day, which is today, my father and my brother visited the pier once again so that my brother could fish. Within 5 minutes, my mom received a call from my dad saying that the oil has washed up to the shore.

The first picture of the oil on the shore was taken today at 12:33 pm, the one below was taken at 1:47 pm. What is the beach going to look like by the end of the day when high tide kicks in?

There are 2 1/2 million gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf PER DAY, estimates are raising.

I walked down to the shore and was highly disturbed. Tar balls were covering the shore, oil was resting on top of the water, dead fish were washing up, and birds dove in for food and never came out. The lives of these animals are going to be lost because no one is doing anything to clean up this mess. Do I believe that they are trying all they can to cap it? Yes, possibly, but no actions are being taken to clean it up.

Dolphins were about 50 feet from shore struggling to swim, in a group of about 15. The coast guard informed me that sharks are usually found about 10 miles out, now they are being found about a mile. He also said that seaweed is being cooked by the temperature of the oil, which was why it was scattered instead of all connected.

When my mom and I returned to the condo, we turned on the local news to see what was being said about the oil on the beach. The weather man was standing in front of a picture of the beach where you could clearly see the oil on the shore, about 5 seconds later, he moved over so that could no longer see the snapshot of the oil. Also, the beach provides warning flags: Green means everything is ok, yellow is warning, red means bad water conditions, purple means dangerous fish, and double red means that the beach is closed. If the beach is closed, all of the people who rented a condo get their money back. There is oil all over our beach and there is still not a double red flag, why? Money.

Anyways, I want to save my rantings for later on tonight when things get worse.

Later on tonight, we will be going to dinner at Floyd's on the pier, so we'll see how thins go. The pictures at the very top were taken 2 days before the oil snapshots. It continues to get worse by every passing hour.

When are we going to put an end to this?