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15 August 2016

Scary Water, Annoying Inner Voices, Music & Friends

Do you remember this picture I posted of the gross, smelly algae surrounding my boat a couple of months ago? It’s a result of runoff from sugar cane farming and is all over the place in southern Florida. Ick.



While the algae hasn’t been quite as bad as it was back then, it's still alive and well at Indiantown Marina. Not only is it disgusting, it’s also scary. I dropped one of my flip-flops in the water the other day. For a few minutes, I considered just leaving it there while the voices inside my head had a heated debate.

“Grab it quick before it floats away! The last thing we need is more plastic polluting our waters. Don't you care about the environment?” 

That was the responsible voice. This is the same one that’s horrified by the lack of recycling at our marina and thinks I shouldn't spend so much time doing online crossword puzzles.

"What’s wrong with you? You just spent 99 cents on those flip-flops at Walmart. We don’t want to shell out for another pair already!” 

This was the frugal voice that thinks we should save all of our nickels and dimes for more important things, like a water maker and many boxes of brownie mix.

“Stay away from the water! Don’t even think of putting your hand in the water! Your hand will develop green scales on it, shrivel up and then fall off!” 

While the scaredy-cat has a kind of an annoying, shrill voice, it actually makes a lot of sense at times. The algae is toxic and scares the crap out of me.

When you have so many voices living in your head, the key is compromise. Otherwise, they start to argue, shove and pinch each other. Did you know that’s what causes headaches? It's the voices in your head acting like kids in the backseat of the car fighting over a toy.

So, I compromised. I found a hangar and scooped the flip-flop out of the water with it, avoiding putting my hand directly in the water. I then washed it off for ages to get all of the gross, scary algae off of it.

Everyone was happy. I avoided polluting the water with plastic, kept us from having to shell out another 99 cents for a new pair of flip-flops and avoided the soylent green algae water as best I could.

This stuff is everywhere in southern Florida. I was out in Stuart yesterday hanging out with my friends from Sailing Wind Spirit and MJ Sailing. We walked over from Sunset Bay Marina to hear a concert and along the way I saw this sign, which goes to show you how downright horrifying this algae is. The fact that it says "Declaration of Emergency" kind of clues you into that.

 
Fortunately, the music, conversation, drinks, food, a nautical trivia game and pretty views from the marina managed to take my mind off of the dangers lurking in the water. It even managed to keep the little voices inside my head quiet for a few hours too. 



What's the grossest thing you've ever touched? Would you be scared of the water out here?

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26 comments:

  1. You have voices in your head too? Imagine that. You know I get some of my best ideas from the voices in my head. Just so you know.

    I wouldn't want to touch that water and I don't want to touch the water where we boat either. There is always something in the water that's not good.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

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    1. The voices in your head must be very clever chappies. Mine always come up with some very silly ideas :-)

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  2. I wouldn't touch the water there. Here in Montreal the St. Lawrence River is what we have but even though there are a few beaches I am not at all comfortable going into the water. It is pretty polluted.

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  3. Voices in ones head can be fun. No way I'd touch that water. Grossest thing I ever touched was dog crap when I was picking it up, dumb crappy bags lol

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    1. Ick - dog poop ranks right up there in terms of gross things.

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  4. I would've scooped it out with the hanger and placed it directly in the trash! That is just scary. You realize someone somewhere is fishing in that toxic goo.
    And just think - the Olympic divers have been plunging into a pool that's just about that color for a week...

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    1. I should have done what you suggested - that would have been the smart thing to do. There's a guy that comes in here regularly to fish for armored catfish. He sells it to restaurants up North. I wonder if they know where it comes from? Be careful what you eat.

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  5. The colour of that water would not induce me to put my hand in it. Ick!

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  6. Nasty! How do you keep Tickety Boo's bottom clean? Or do you have bottom paint that actually works? I pick up dog poo daily, but I think spoiled potatoes are amongst the nastiest things I've touched. Yuck!

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    1. The short answer is that we don't keep it clean. It will be a surprise for us when we get to the Bahamas. I've heard it's hard to find people who will go in the water around these parts and clean your bottoms. Can't say that I blame them. We are in fresh water, so hopefully not too much growing on the bottom.

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  7. I like that you have the responsible, frugal, and scaredy-cat voices, good additions to Amy G Dala, and Fran who are also talking in there.... (http://littlecunningplan.com/2016/04/a-is-for-amy-g-dala-demon-princess-of-anxiety/) What will you have to wear to clean off the bottom of the boat, or better yet who can you hire to do it for you? I don't know what is the yuckiest thing I have touched, I think I have blocked such things in my memory.

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    1. Melissa's Amy G Dala's posts are the best! You're smart to block unpleasant memories :-)

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  8. The grossest thing ever that we had on the boat (I didn't touch it though) was a jelly fish. We were cruising in the Bay of Islands and the anchorage was littered with the orange ones that have long tentacles (don't know what they're called). I was using the head and one got sucked up in the intake hose. The next thing I know, there are tentacles hanging from the lip of the toilet bowl. Talk about gross! David saved the day and cleared it out but kept yelling out to me, "don't come in here, you don't want to see this." I don't say it often enough, but he really is a good guy.

    Stephanie @ SV CAMBRIA

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    1. Oh my goodness. I don't think I could have coped with that!

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  9. I guess that color of water is in it for the long run. Sorry to hear that. It is pretty gross and probably will have a lot of ecological side-effects. Not good. For some reason I did not want to think about you guys getting a water maker yet, when I looked at the fluorescent photo...

    I'm sure I have touched gross things, since those are part of life, but I can't think of anything in particular. The grossest thing I have probably done was empty the holding tank of our camper into a bucket one time in Central America when there were no "dump stations" around, and carry it to a toilet to flush it all. Yep... the gross things in this relationship are for me. But, I don't mind! :-)

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    1. You definitely wouldn't be using a water maker here, that's for sure. You're a good egg for taking on the gross tasks. I'm happy to leave those to Scott :-)

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  10. That algae sounds like something in a horror story! I can just picture it, creeping slowly up the dock, eating away at everything it touches...kind of like The Blob.

    I love the image of the voices in our heads being like kids arguing in the backseat of a car. So, so true.

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    1. I can just picture it now - a green colored Blob :-)

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  11. Yeah, when we lived on the bayou in Louisiana we experienced that foul green stuff! One time the bayou behind our house was fine, so we took our power boat for a nice day on the water ... only to find ourselves in pea soup around the bend! Ugh!

    Glad you had some time with friends ... out of the water!

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    1. Fun out of the water is definitely the way to go these days :-)

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  12. Something that I find really gross are those local mushrooms pop up cos of moist wood/water. They just freak me out.
    I use many things to just get them off sometimes. Gosh - don't make me talk about it ;)

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    1. I know the ones you mean - they are pretty creepy :-)

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  13. Ok, so this is not something gross - far from it. But I feel it's critical knowledge I need to share with you: Kroger currently has 10 for $10 on their brownie packets. Please tell me you have a Kroger near by.

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    1. This is very critical knowledge. Sadly, there aren't any Krogers in these parts :-(

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