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I'm planning the winter "beach trip" and realized I'm completely avoiding the US Gulf area. Not even sure how I feel about beaches in Mexico. Last year we went to Tampa at Thanksgiving, but thanks to the spill and Corexit, that's off the table.
Just wondering how many people have the same "test it out on somebody else for a few years" feeling about Gulf beaches.
Go give your support to the people down there when they need it. I've stayed in a few places along the Gulf coast from South Padre Island to Sanibel Island and bits in between. I'm sure you can find out where is affected and where isn't, and though it's easy for me to say maybe those hit need the most support.
I voted yes but there really should be a clarification to the yes answer....if oil was actually visable..a huge dark slick than no....otherwise why not??
NO, I am never swimming in the Gulf again. I will vacation down there, stay at a nice hotel use the pool, go fish, golf, etc. But I will never step foot in that water again. I have relatives in Baton Rouge and we used to go to gulf all the time. I never felt as disgusting coming out of water as I did when I was in South Texas. My skin literaly burned and flaked when I came out of it. The gulf is like a toilet bowl that never drains, it just swirls around and around.
Oil aside, I agree with arrgy. Every single time I went in that water, my clothes would smell like sewage. I wouldn't let my dogs in there, so a big no to the kids!
Go give your support to the people down there when they need it. I've stayed in a few places along the Gulf coast from South Padre Island to Sanibel Island and bits in between. I'm sure you can find out where is affected and where isn't, and though it's easy for me to say maybe those hit need the most support.
A month after 9/11, I was in NYC with my family spending like a drunken sailor. Didn't visit Ground Zero, because it felt like gawking-- strictly went to support the economy.
The Gulf is different. The plane tickets alone would put us out a thousand bucks. Since we don't like staying in big hotels, the reason we go to the ocean is to go to the ocean. Not playing in the sand and water kind of negates the trip.
Lastly, "support the locals" doesn't trump "protect my kid." If I can figure out a way to support them without dipping skin, lungs, eyes-- and yes, a mouth that occasionally drinks swimming water-- to who knows what toxins, I'll send money that way or a letter to a senator or a protest of BP.
I voted yes but there really should be a clarification to the yes answer....if oil was actually visable..a huge dark slick than no....otherwise why not??
I was a assuming no one would let their kids swim if oil was visible-- maybe that's a mistaken assumption.
In answer to "why not"-- carbon monoxide is odorless and tasteless, so the air seems fine, but can kill you. People in some communities have had tap water that looked and tasted fine, but ended up giving them cancer.
We know that there were massive amounts of oil and Corexit (which sounds like truly nasty stuff) dumped into the Gulf. Seen or unseen, I just don't trust the water down there to young developing bodies.
But....I'm polling to see how others feel. The government seems to be telling people it's okay. Then again, Obama vacations at the Gulf but-- his daughter didn't actually swim in it. That's the crux of it.
Cohdane, you do know that the oil did not hit the vast majority of the gulf coast, don't you?
I live close enough to the "redneck riviera" that I know countless people who have been there this summer---Florida, Alabama, Mississippi coasts. They have all reported that they have had no problem finding unpolluted beaches and water. Most didn't see any sign any where of it. Yes, some places got hit, but the majority did not.
Unfortunately, people like cohdane seem to think of the gulf coast and being uniformly polluted by the spill...not even close to the truth.
I wouldn't hesitate to go...it'll probably be only time in our lives that we can see the gulf coast with 1950s level crowds...
I intend on going later in the fall. An August visit to the gulf isn't my idea of pleasurable...October and November is another story.
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