Red Tide
 

Does anyone know anything about this? When we went to Sanibel in 2018 it was quite bad, dead fish on beach, gave us a slight cough, sitting on beach wasn't pleasant-such a shame. We loved Sanibel itself. Planning another trip summer 2021, we like a bit of beach mixed in with our disney/universal fix. Is the Red Tide less likely to affect the atlantic coast? ( I appreciate you can never be certain) If so is Cocoa Beach nice, we would like to avoid anywhere too high rise/densely built up... Thank you all.

AFAIK, red tide does not affect the Atlantic coast. We also suffered the horrendous Red Tide at Anna Maria beach Island and it made us ill for an hour or so!

The Atlantic beaches are fairly quiet. The ocean is slightly colder and it can be windy. On the upside, you will see more wildlife.

I prefer the gulf coast, Clearwater is my favourite

AS Moorlandman says, the red tide is a gulf phenomenon. This site may be of use

https://visitbeaches.org/#

Personally, I prefer the beaches further south around Boca Grande or Sanibel as they tend to be quieter. YMMV :)

Think there was trouble with Red Tide on the Atlatic coast in 2018.
That was a particularly bad year.

Yes and it was really bad at Disney's Vero Beach in Oct 2018 and also around 2004/2005.

https://eu.tcpalm.com/story/news/loc...18/1656605002/

There's also a good report on red tide at https://www.nationalgeographic.com/e...nce/red-tides/

Richard Stumpf, an algal blooms expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), says red tides tend to occur in Florida every year. In Texas, they used to bloom every ten years, but now appear every three years. Louisiana and Alabama cases tend to appear more rarely, often only when hurricanes push blooms northwest from southwest Florida.

Thanks everyone- some really useful info here- as always :)

This is a good website for the current RT conditions.

http://ocgweb.marine.usf.edu/tbm/hab/