Diving with sargassum?

[FT]

headed to Akumal next week, and although there are a couple other issues that might affect this holiday, what this group might answer for me is your experience diving when sargassum is washing ashore. How has it affected getting to the boat, visibility, critters to be seen?

 

[drbill]

Of course there are over 250 species in the genus Sargassum, and each species can affect water conditions differently. Here on the West Coast (California) we have several species, including the highly invasive S. horneri. During the cooler months when it really proliferates, this species can seriously impact diving by over-growing native species of algae and invertebrates as well as reducing visibility especially during periods of gamete release.

Which species are you referring to?

 

[FT]

S. natans and fluitans, according to the Akumal Dive Shop. Large mats of it washing ashore recently.

 

[drbill]

Here on Catalina we get floating mats of S. horneri when it dies off. S. natans is a pelagic vs benthic species. Since the mats there are floating too, I wonder if it really affects the diving when you are submerged to diving depths.

 

[ColoDale]

We dove Akumal abot one and half years ago in June/July and had significant amounts of sargassum floating in the water and on the beaches. It really did not affect diving once under. However the boats avoided moving through it on the sruface and the large mats of sargussam on the beach had large amounts of insects in them especially sand fleas. Since the entry was a beach entry to the boat, we had to walk through it. There were some hotels in the area that hauled away the sargassum on the beach. We are getting a bit more sargassum on the West side of Cozumel today but the wind has changed direction a bit.

 

[FT]

Thanks so much, ColoDale. Just back, and our experience was similar to yours. The amount of seaweed washing ashore varied each day with the wind direction. Lots of workers dedicated to raking and carting it away. We were told to hope for seahorses as they hitch rides on the sargassum then drop down to the grasses on the bottom, but had no luck spotting any.