David Beach

Any , preferably first-hand, updates on the seaweed situation in various places in the Yucatan / Carribean? So far , we are planning to go there for 2 weeks in late January, but may decide to spend "beach" time on the Pacific instead. The other two weeks will be inland in Central Mexico.

The trouble is, that most of the reports on forums obviously come from people at hotels, resorts and tourist companies, so not that trustowrthy. One place in Cancun had webcams on an often-cleaned portion of beach, obvious by looking at it at different times!

Obviously, there are some good places away from the sea in Yucatan, but we would like some fair comment over the next month or so.

Thanks, all.

JDiver

I look at the SEAS forecast for Quintana Roo South. Unfortunately, it’s not updated frequently.

SEAS Forecasting

Other sources say there’s not much, if any, sargassum on the beaches right now.

The government is spending $100 million on a sargassum abatement and remediation program as well, so there’s hope the sargassum problem will diminish as well.

David Beach

Thanks, that seems like a valid site to check.

If any have recent at-site updates, I would appreciate them.

shelly67

We live much of the year in Belize but just 8m south if the Mexico border so we're constantly driving up and down the coastline between the southern tip of Belize right the way up to Cancun.

As you know the sargassum has been a much worse problem than usual these past few months. The biggest issue we see though is not the amount of it but the problems it causes when weather conditions mean it doesn't break up and wash onto the shore (where it can be dealt with) as this then forms a barrier preventing people entering the sea from the beach but it also rots and then the stink that causes is truly horrendous but we've not seen conditions that bad since back in Feb/March this year.

One thing we have really noticed over the course of this year is that the various resorts, towns etc have gone to great lengths to stop the sargassum from impacting on the beaches. In Mahahual in Costa Maya they have installed large barriers at sea and nets etc to try and stop and/or catch the sargassum and we have seen similar structures in many places now plus beach tractors to help clear the beaches.

Since the end of October we have spent time in Mahahual, Tulum, Playa del Carmen and Puerto Morelos and have seen minimal weed in any of the tourist areas here.

We're in Puerto Morelos right now and its stunning, sunny and pretty much weed free but we saw something new a couple of days ago..... it was a brightly orange coloured vessel with what looked like a water wheel on the back and some sort of plough type front that was in the sea out by the reef here and was clearly busy doing some sort of job in breaking up any weed out there.

Hope that helps.

shelly67

Current beach situation in Puerto Morelos (taken Saturday)

shelly67

Just a final update. Just after I posted the last message at breakfast time, I took a beach walk and realised that the high winds we'd had overnight and yesterday must have washed a load of weed up onto the beach. There was some in the sea.....not much but quite a bit on the beach keeping the guys busy raking and bagging it.

David Beach

Okay, thanks for the updates Shelley67!

emma69

I was just north of Cancun last week, and there was very little to no seaweed on the beaches. The water was a touch cool mind you, but I still went in every day.

hectorbilmares

Im going to be honest, they continue having problems, is a big deal? NOT, you can enjoy the beautiful beaches even with a little sargassum, because they have a lot of beaches, maybe in some especific places of playa del carmen, is more, but as far I know Cancun beaches are like 70% free of sargassum now

JDiver

Here’s some drone footage of Cozumel by KimDDD and Nauvk showing sargassum on some beaches, so you know what it looks like.

PHX_Flyer

First week of May the sargassum was awful in Tulum. The grass was washed up on the beach in 2 ft high, and 6 ft wide swaths. Only a few hotels were harvesting and stacking the grass but couldn't keep up. The rotting smell wasn't too bad as it was windy all week. Sad.

EqualOpp

https://www.facebook.com/RedSargazo/