On December 3rd 2011 the St. Maarten Nature Foundation, through the generous donation of the St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) dollar-a-day program, conducted Arial Surveys with an aircraft piloted by Captain Ricardo Wilson of the Caribbean Flight Academy to look for patches of Sargasso Seaweed which may be headed in the direction of local beaches.
Sargassum is a genus of brown (class Phaeophyceae) seaweed which is distributed throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world. Most of the Sargasso Seaweed lies concentrated in the Sargasso Sea, a region in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean surrounded by ocean currents. It is bounded on the west by the Gulf Stream; on the north, by the North Atlantic Current; on the east, by the Canary Current; and on the south, by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current.
Sargasso Weed has been plaguing the Caribbean and St. Maarten for some months now. With the Foundation having to warn swimmers to avoid swimming in Guana Bay in August and September due to the large amount of Sargasso Weed and many beach front residences and hotels having to continuously clean washed up Sargassum. The resulting large influx of Sargasso Weed has been due to a suspected southward shift in the Gulf Stream, which has pushed the Sargasso Sea– an area of the Atlantic Ocean where Sargasso Weed is in thick concentration, south to our area.
A total of five (5) medium patches of Sargassum and three (3) small patches of Sargassum were observed during the survey flight floating in a westerly, south-westerly direction. Two medium patches were drifting towards the Eastern Shore of the Island and are expected to come ashore in the vicinity of Back Bay close to the Pointe Blanche area.
A fly-over was conducted over Guana Bay and Dawn beach and very little Sargassum was observed in that direction, with some small patches being immediately offshore of those beaches.
The Nature Foundation will continuously monitor the status of the Sargasso Weed and notify the authorities if there is an imminent risk of a large influx of Sargasso in the St. Maarten Area.
Click here to view the Nature Foundation Sargassum Survey.
