Oil Spill Update II

Unfortunately this BP Oil Spill Update is much worse than the previous entry. Although the beaches at Destin and Navarre are still as beautiful as they were when I previously blogged, we traveled 25 miles to the west to Pensacola Beach and things were much worse. We went to Fort Pickens and when we arrived at the park we saw a large crowd and several news crews gathered on the beach. We let curiosity get the best of us and we stopped to investigate.

When we got closer we saw the marine mammal rescue team trying to save a young female dolphin which had beached herself and she was covered in oil. They attempted to clean her and kept taking her in and out of the water to keep her alive. We learned later, the dolphin did not survive. It was sickening.

The beach had turned from a beautiful white to a speckled mess. There was oil all along the beach at Fort Pickens. We later heard on the radio, they had closed the beach to swimmers. We don't know how much longer we have until the mess reaches us, but we can't imagine it will be long. Like one of our political leaders said, "plug the damned hole!" I'm not sure I could have said any better.

It's one thing to live 11 hrs from the coast and see the coverage on the news, but it's another to be here and see some of the impact first hand. I can't explain how it impacts you to see something like this failed dolphin rescue. This is a real tragedy.

Marine mammal rescue tries to save young female dolphin at Ft. Pickens.

Another shot of the rescue attempt. The dolphin was covered in oil and later died.

The oil splattered beach at Ft. Pickens near Pensacola.

The beaches were later closed to swimmers.