Friday 1 August 2008

Morieux, afternoon.

The beach was a nice idea, but the seaweed pollution makes walking horrible. Two dogs were said to have died from fumes from it recently; we give up, turn back.

3 comments:

Bee said...

Does something oily and nasty cling to the seaweed? What do you mean by seaweed pollution?

Lucy said...

The high levels od agricultural nitrates in the water table here run off into the bay. Particularly in warmer drier weather, this causes huge amounts of thick, lettucey algal seaweed, which chokes the coasts and gets washed up on the beach. It's called the green tide, and is the subject of much protest, but there seems little improvement. Sometimes the rivers go thick peasoup green too in very bad years.

The fumes were a new one on me; apparently when it rots in the sun it gives off noxious vapours; I don't know how or where the dogs died, perhaps they ate it, or got stranded among it or something, but I didn't fancy risking anything!

Bee said...

Thanks for the interesting explanation! Goodness, it sounds horrible.