Sargasso
Pelagic sargassum is an algae endemic to the Atlantic Ocean. Like all oceanic algae it thrives on warm water, sunlight and nutrients. Climate change warms the ocean, human runoff provides the nutrients and voila! Sargasso blooms. Now, a massive plume of the stuff extends more or less permanently from the Caribbean across the Atlantic to West Africa. Prevailing currents and wind push it west where it inundates Caribbean beaches. Each year, since 2011, the deposits grow. Vast mats wash ashore - up to four feet deep and thirty feet off the beach - a brown, stinking, rotting, plastic infused, brillo-pad, mess.
It is the hot, unbalanced, chemical ocean coming ashore. It is Mother Earth’s warning. It is climate disruption.
Here in Mahahual various entities erect ramshakle nets to try and keep it off the beaches. Big blue inflatable bags are tethered just inside the reef in an attempt to filter the weed. Still it piles ashore pushed over the reef and barriers by 20 knot trade winds. Residents gather to pitch wheelbarrows of the stuff into massive stinking piles ashore - 400 pesos a day plus two meals. A front end loader fills a dump truck or pushes it across the road to a rotting pile in the mangroves.
I visited this coast 15, 12 and 8 years ago and it has gotten worse every trip. 15 years ago, south of Tulum, the beach was windy, wild and free, white sand, free of weed, jaw-dropping gorgeous. Simple palapa hostels every half mile or so accessed by a nearly impassable road had fresh fish tacos, cervezas, booming surf and clean beaches. 12 years ago, Cancun was lost, Playa was going and Tulum threatened. 8 years ago, Tulum could still muster some magic, but development and the first sargasso inundations were warnings. This trip - to Mahahual almost in Belize - the coast is overwhemed by sargasso and trash. The entire coast from Cancun to Placencia suffers.
"We would rather be ruined than changed,
We would rather die in dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die"
- WH Auden
The good news? What is sustainable, will be sustained. What is not sustainable, will end.
Cruise ships big as 10 city blocks, dock at a pier thrust into the Caribbean. Blue smoke curls from their stacks as they run massive generators to keep the air conditioning, gaudy lights, restaurants, bars, casinos and roller coasters running to entertain the horde.
On this straight coast, no natural port exists - but energetic, already rich, arrogant men built a half mile long concrete and steel pier into the sea. At the base of the pier, they built an ersatz settlement for cruise ship passengers - a fake Mayan temple, a captive dolphin attraction, a pizza joint, bars. There is money to be made from fat, affluent, nord americano cruise shippers.
Two miles south of the terminal, another settlement exists. Humble restaurants, bars, hotels and street vendors cluster along a mile long concrete walkway - the Malecon - bordering the beach. The people who work here live in shacks and casitas in poor neighborhoods within a few kilometers of the terminal and the Malecon.
Sometimes, the trade winds blow too hard for a leviathon to dock safely. On these days, the ship takes a look at the pier, but the master decides to set sail for the next landfall. All is quiet in Mahahual on these "no boat" days. During the pandemic, when the ships stopped coming, the population dropped to less than 300. As the ships go, so goes the village.
Two ships at the dock. Twenty thousand people unleashed on Mahahual looking to carouse and shop - escape their humdrum lives and visit paradise. Only one thousand people reside in the village nearby. The locals are overrun by the escapees.
Dawn and I walk Echo down the Malecon in the morning before the boat people arrive. We eat delicious fifty cent empanadas bought from laughing street vendors sitting on tricycle carts. We buy coconuts for a buck and drink sweet coconut water out of the nut, watching the eternal ocean, sitting under a wrecked palapa beside the weed strewn beach.
In the afternoon I snorkle in the strong current just off the beach inside the rough grey reef. Small minnowy fish hang in the stream around bleached, dead, powdery coral heads. Some fan coral survives. Nothing big. Lots of sand, some rocks. Lots of weed whipping by. Beds of eel grass bend to the current bereft of life.
The beach is crowded. Cruise ship bikini girls sun bathe just above the stinking weed line. Beach vendors sell them delicious sliced mango and pineapple. Crowds shop the vendor stalls. Party groups dance under the palms in outdoor bars to thumping rythms. Touristas look for cheap-ass bargains; vendors look to sell at gringo prices; in their symbiotic relationship they attract each other to the hot, muggy, wind blasted, smelly beach and call it paradise.
After the ships leave, we get evening drinks and paella in a beach bar with Echo under the table. Dwindling trade winds cool the day. Mellow, jazzy reggae plays and the friendly staff skylark behind the bar, flirt with the dog. The paella is superb - saffron rice, mussels, crab, octopus, clams, shrimp, carrots, peas spiced to perfection. Washed down with a margarita, we stay past closing while a vagabond musician plays romantic Santana infused music sitting on a beat up chair in the middle of the Malecon. We sashay home, past tumbledown bars and vendor stalls on our left, weed choked lagoon on our right.
How can I keep my heart open in light of such tragic romance, ignorance and destruction.
Behind our casita, on the porch tied between two poles holding up the tile roof is slung our hammock. It is a refuge, my meditation retreat. There - in the eternal now, I feel the soft touch of the breeze on my skin, hear the rustle of the palms, see the hot pink bougainvilla on the garden wall, observe my breath, submerge into the moment.
Awareness envelops me. Self dissolves. Thoughts arise and float away. The ice cream truck jingles by on a side street. Wind shakes the palm tree. A smatter of rain. Deep, quiet contemplation reveals truth. Climate disruption is not on the horizon, somewhere in our future, it is here and now. Earth is showing us her pain. Earth is warning us. Earth is asking us to come home. It is alright, she says. You will survive.
Our culture - violent, arrogant, angry, ambitious, nihilistic, profit driven, oily, mechanical - will die.
Our civilization - the language, art, love, expression, compassion; natural, wooden, courageous and joyful - will endure.
Consciousness creates matter from energy. It seeks to love, grow, bloom, dance, experiment, improvise, laugh, create. All matter, from the loneliest electron to the far galaxies, are precipitates of energy sparked by ultimate consciousness. You, me, iguanas, dogs, the sun, the rain, the ocean are all different forms of the same consciousness. Every form, every moment is a new creation - a beautiful surprise.
I am in love with the Earth - this blue water droplet floating in infinite space. Her love is everywhere. It is all there is.
Back on the beach with a mixture of dread, compassion and joy. Dread because I know, can see and smell what climate change has in store - it will get worse before it gets better. Compassion for the guides, tourists, vendors and ex-pats - all of us caught in the fantasy of paradise on a strip of smelly beach. Joy because I see the next peaceful, sustainable, indigenous world approaching - wild and free, humble and wise, beautiful.
This morning is cooler, dry after a weak cold front. The wind has dropped, the sea is down. It is a quiet “no boat” morning. A week of back-breaking work by the good people of the village has miraculously cleared sargasso from much of the beach. The ancient Mayan coconut man slices off the top of the nut with his machete. His face is weathered, hands are gnarled, fingers fat and hard. The water inside is ambrosia.
