Bahamas Boating News and Baystreet Marina Update – Asso of Bahamas Marinas
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Final Pier Dances – Charleston County Parks and Recreation, Charleston, SC
Pier Dances Spend your Friday night on the dance floor with us this summer! Whether it’s a Moonlight Mixer on the Folly Beach Pier or Dancing On The Cooper on the Mount Pleasant Pier, we’ve got plenty of space to move and groove.
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Yachting in Florida: Essential Safety Tips from Riviera Dunes Marina, Bradenton, FL
A CRUISERS NET SPONSOR, Riviera Dunes Marina Resort occupies the Manatee River’s northern banks, just east of the easternmost of three bridges crossing the river at Bradenton and Palmetto near charted Craig Point. See FOCUS ON for more on Riviera Dunes Marina Resort.
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Appreciation – Janice Anne Wheeler
I imagine this is what the plant has looked like since it moved here in 1921.
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A Forgotten People: Bohemian oyster shuckers on NC coast by David Cecelski
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Change in Town Docking Regulations – Oriental, NC
Oriental is home to longtime CRUISERS NET SPONSOR, Oriental Marina and Inn, lying on the eastern banks of inner Oriental Harbor. Our thanks to Bob423 for this information.
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NOAA Ocean Today Back-to-School Guide!
In one way of thinking, corals are part animal, vegetable, and mineral. How is that possible?
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Is Tampa Bay in hot water? Fred Pickhardt
Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for moreAccording to a recent news article Tampa Bay is facing some serious environmental issues. A massive untreated wastewater spill during Hurricane Debby has added to existing concerns about the health of the area’s estuaries. The storm overwhelmed the sewage systems, leading to millions of gallons of raw and partially treated wastewater spilling into streets, canals, and natural waterways.
Two day Storm Rainfall Totals
Turning on the Heat
The article further highlights that sea surface temperatures in Tampa Bay and nearby estuaries are rising significantly faster than the global average. It reports that in July 2023, surface water temperatures in Manatee Bay hit a record-breaking 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit.
I decided to investigate the claims about the record high water temperature in Manatee Bay. The station reporting this temperature is part of a network of specialized observation sites in the Everglades, designed to monitor water depth and fresh water flow in shallow, mangrove-rich areas.
The shallow waters of the Everglades experience significant temperature fluctuations due to varying amounts of sunlight, cloud cover, wind, and rainfall. The unusually sunny and dry conditions, along with lighter winds in the spring and summer of 2023, contributed to higher temperatures at the Manatee Bay site. It’s important to note that data from the Everglades Depth Estimation Network (EDEN), which tracks water levels across the freshwater Everglades landscape, is not suitable for comparison with ocean buoy data.
EDEN Manatee Bay Station | U.S. Geological Survey
What’s going on here?
Between 1970 and 2020, the sea surface temperature (SST) of the Gulf of Mexico increased by about 1.0°C (1.8°F), which corresponds to a warming rate of 0.19°C (0.34°F) per decade or 0.019°C (0.034°F) per year. Initially, SST anomalies in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic tracked closely with the global SST trend. However, since around 1990, these anomalies have started to rise more rapidly. This time period also marks the beginning of the warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which is likely contributing to the accelerated warming in both the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.
Ref https://journals.ametsoc.org/
view/journals/clim/36/8/JCLI- D-22-0409.1.xml Rapid Ocean Warming in 2023
The article cites meteorologist Brian McNoldy from the University of Miami, who notes that the Gulf of Mexico’s temperatures “really went off the rails last spring, and they haven’t gotten back to the rails since then.” I concur that the 2023 water temperatures indeed were exceptionally high.
In my view, the unusual warming in the North Atlantic, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions, is largely attributable to a combination of factors. Firstly, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is in its warm phase, which raises baseline sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic. Secondly, the effects of an El Niño event and unusually weak trade winds have also played significant roles.
During 2023, sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the Tropical North Atlantic surged notably in the spring and summer. This warming can be attributed to the weakening and southward displacement of the Azores-Bermuda ridge as shown below in the June 2023 surface pressure anomaly chart. This ridge’s weakening diminished trade winds, leading to reduced upper-ocean mixing and evaporative cooling. Concurrently, there was less cloud cover and Saharan dust, fewer sulfate particles due to cleaner shipping fuels, and increased stratospheric water vapor from the Hunga-Tonga undersea eruption. These combined factors facilitated the rapid warming of the ocean surface.
June 2023 Surface Pressure Anomaly
Tampa Bay Sea Surface Temperatures
Have sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in Tampa Bay been rising significantly faster than global averages and even those in the Gulf of Mexico?
To address this, I examined the average SSTs for July and August, which are typically the warmest months in Tampa Bay, to determine if there is an accelerated warming trend. Using data from “seatemperature.info,” it is evident that SSTs in Tampa Bay for July and August 2023 were notably higher than in previous years, with data available from 2007 onward.
Note Purple dot denotes El Nino Year
Source: https://seatemperature.info/
july/tampa-bay-water- temperature.html A quick calculation indicates that the warming trend for Tampa Bay from 2007 to 2022 was approximately 0.07°F per year which is about twice the longer-term rate of 0.034°F per year (1970-2020). However, including the 2023 data, the trend rises to 0.10°F per year, representing an increase of about 43%. This suggests that the temperatures in July and August of 2023 were anomalously high, and incorporating this data might skew the long-term warming rate.
To better understand whether 2023 represents a one-time anomaly due to a rare combination of natural factors or signals a shift in the longer-term warming trend, it would be prudent to wait a few more years. This additional time will help clarify whether the observed increase is part of an ongoing trend related to climate change or an isolated event.
Fred Pickhardt
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Lost riverfront destination, Bayview Hotel nearly forgotten – Coastal Review
Guests at the Bayview Hotel flock to the sandy bank of the Pamlico River during the establishment’s heyday. Photo courtesy Historic Port of Washington Project Read more at Coastal Review, coastalreview.org.
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Miami Beach Cracks the Anti-Cruiser Code – Peter Swanson
Cruisers Net publishes Loose Cannon articles with Captain Swanson’s permission in hopes mariners with salt water in their veins will subscribe.. $7 a month or $56 for the year and you may cancel at anytime.
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When all else fails, try journalism.
Miami Beach Cracks the Anti-Cruiser Code
Can’t Just Kick ‘Em Out? Make It So They Can’t Get Food Instead
The City of Miami Beach tows away cruiser dinghies found in violation of dock restrictions. This is a YouTube screenshot from a WPLG Local10 television news broadcast. Municipalities convinced that liveaboard boats lead to derelict boats now have a foolproof solution to the problem—as long as they share the same moral code as Cruela de Ville and the City of Miami Beach.
August 2024 will mark the month Miami Beach found the formula for victory over what it calls “boat squatters.” This tony seaside community has had a long-running feud with cruisers that has gone through several phases, often turning on the latest change in Florida anchoring laws.
Late last year, the city’s latest hope of legislating local anchoring out of existence fell short. Senate Bill 192 would have limited anchoring within 200 yards of any part of Miami Beach between the MacArthur Causeway to the Julia Tuttle Causeway. In its amended form, it only banned anchoring between a strip of islands along the Venetian Causeway crossing Biscayne Bay.
If you aren’t familiar with the geography, no worries. One legislator said the amended bill affected about three percent of waters originally included, most notably not the part near downtown referred to as Sunset Harbour. The liveaboard community was relieved by the compromise, but not for long.
Starve ‘Em
Their nemesis, Miami Beach Commissioner David Suarez, had a clever plan. His idea was to deprive them of the ability to buy food. “Since we can’t control what happens on the water, we can certainly control how you get to land,” Suarez told Miami’s Local 10 News.
Once upon a time, cruisers in the vicinity of Sunset Lake and Venetian Causeway had three ways to get ashore to buy groceries and enjoy the amenities of downtown Miami Beach, which was just a 15 minute walk away. They could tie their dinghies to a canal-side dock by Publix supermarket, dock them at the Maurice Gibb boat ramp or lie alongside a canal bulkhead.
With Suarez as point man, the City Commission eliminated these options one by one, first by tearing out the Publix dock, then outlawing bulkhead tie-ups and finally severely restricting access to the Gibb ramp service dock.
Writing for the Miami Herald, Aaron Leibowitz said:
A new ordinance, which received final approval from the City Commission late last month and took effect August 3, declares that the boat ramp at Maurice Gibb Park in Sunset Harbour can only be used by city residents to “launch and retrieve noncommercial vessels”—not to dock boats, even temporarily, or pick up and drop off passengers.
Previously, motorized boats could dock at the ramp for 20 minutes. That time limit remains in place at a nearby floating dock for kayaks and paddleboards.
The law imposes steep penalties: $1,000 for a first offense, then $2,000 and $5,000 for a second and third offense, plus an option for criminal charges with up to 60 days in jail. The ordinance also calls for immediate towing of the offending boat, which can cost over $1,000 to retrieve from a private tow company.
Checkmate, boat squatters!
You can no longer buy groceries, walk the dog or grab a Cuban Sandwich at the Havana 57.
Mooring Field
Many Southern sailors have expressed hostility to mooring fields, even though land access and amenities (showers, holding-tank pump-outs and laundry facilities) are baked into the formula.
Miami Beach has a plan for just such a mooring field at Sunset Harbour and nearby, which will accomodate 147 boats, some portion of which will be for liveaboards. According to the Herald, there are typically about 100 liveaboard boats at anchor nowadays. The newspaper quoted some of the boat people as welcoming the idea of a mooring field, and why wouldn’t they at this point?
The city has set March 2026 as the target for opening the planned mooring field for business, as shown below:
In his crusade to run-off liveaboards—Suarez called it his No. 1 priority—the freshman commissioner made an environmental case against anchoring. He alleged (as one does) that everyone was pumping raw sewage into the bay and that their anchor chains were scraping seagrass off the bottom.
Loose Cannon rarely has reason to praise conventional media for coverage of boating issues, but there is an exception. On February 28, Miami’s WPLG Local10 television news—specifically journalist Louis Aguirre and producer Anastasia Pavlinskaya Brenman—aired an excellent story that used hard data to rebut both Suarez claims.
Hardly anyone was pumping overboard based on police inspections, and, according to experts, there was hardly any seagrass there in the first place—not for decades.
Which begs the question: Why not just wait until March 2026, and let the new mooring field take care of whatever it is that Miami Beach sees as the problem? According to Florida law, no one can anchor in a mooring field or close by. Surely the insurance requirement and monthly rent, which is likely to be pricey, will screen out boats likely to become derelict.
So, what is your motivation, David Suarez? Admit it, you and your fellow commissioners are just real-life Cruelas.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
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