Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Crandon Beach Sucks - Where I Spent 4th of July and I Want My Parking Money Back! By Geniusofdespair

The first two photos are the same view. The first photo is the actual beach yesterday. Two is the file photo from google. Don't trust the file photos.

Photo number three is the water. I don't mind weeds mind you but the further out I went the higher the weeds were. They almost made it to the surface of the shallow water. So that is why no one is in the water in the photos. Weeds!  "Kids were saying, mommy the water is dirty." When I went out really far, where the weeds stopped, almost to the motorboat zone, the water was cloudy. Yes, I had a mask so I could see what was up.

I used to windsurf here. It was never this bad. What the hell happened to Crandon, our premiere County Park? It sucks. Haulover park is 100 times better than this.

And the water was a rusty orange down on the other side of the sandbar when I walked to the end of the beach. It looked like an algae bloom to me.

A man came up to me and said, "I don't remember Crandon being this way. What happened to the beach? They aren't maintaining it." There were plenty of county workers up and down in motorized equipment, I don't know what they were doing. Why are they shoving all the weeds and sand together into mud. Why not remove the weeds?

I want the $7 back that I paid to park here. I got robbed by the County.  We then went to Virginia Key CITY OWNED BEACH, 10 times better. We could swim and the water wasn't cloudy. The people were having way more fun. At Crandon the people stayed a little while and left.

Realty
Once- now this photo is obsolete
What lurks in the water, thigh high weeds.

Looking in the opposite direction. The pink color is really on the sand.




15 comments:

EugeneFlinn said...

See what happens when you ignore a much better invitation.

Anonymous said...

you went at super low tide and the water in the summer in low tide is gross, its just the topography/geography/bay bottom

Virginia Key is on a cut with super strong currents that keep stuff moving

Geniusofdespair said...

So? Why not post "super low tide, no fun here, move along."

Anonymous said...

I went there in the summer. Never that gross.

Samantha said...

Hey if that is a super low tide then when it is high there is no beach.

Anonymous said...

Been there. Beach sucked. Dirty. The county banned Styrofoam®, yet does nothing about the people tossing their nasty cigarettes butts in the sand and water. They do nothing about people tossing their trash. They could start with emptying garbage cans so people have a place to put trash. The bathrooms were beyond disgusting.

Sad what our attractions have turned into.

Geniusofdespair said...

They had staff, lots of staff. But what were they doing except collecting holiday pay.

Anonymous said...

During the 1950s, the Crandon Park Zoo was located on the beach. Yet, I recall white sand - though in later years, tar balls used to wash ashore. Also, the top of my chest would breakout after a dip in the water. Still, sad to see the beach in such horrid condition.
I do have vivid memories of black fumes hovering over the Rickenbacker Causeway (I believe that's the causeway to Crandon Park Beach.)Our car didn't have A/C, and car fumes were horrid - especially from trucks. If I sat in the back seat, my choice was to roll-up the window and suffocate from the heat, or leave the window down and breathe in suffocating fumes.

Tom Morris said...

ARRGH! That is UNBELIEVABLY sad. :(

Back in the late 90s it was beautiful.

The last time I was there was in about 2005. I was there as part of the lab section of my Ecology of South Florida course. I was the first one from the class to arrive there and was charged $4 to park. Immediately upon the parking attendant (who looked like a zombie bum who just happened to be camped out in the entry structure) realizing that there were more of us coming, the rate *magically* rose to $20 a car.

The rental place on the beach that was supposed to rent us sea kayaks and catamarans to do the observation part of this on the water only had like three canoes on site; they'd sent all their other equipment elsewhere because nobody came to that beach anymore.

We started wading out to where there was, as of the year prior, a grassbed teeming with marine life. The professor's face quickly turned to one of confusion... then of anger and sadness. There was nothing left. It was all just a moonscape of sterile sand. All the marine life had perished.

The sand was full of black muck and washed up seaweed, and there was a very foul smell in the air.

That pink crap you are seeing on the sand is either an algal or bacterial bloom, or even a large quantity of dinoflagellates. I'm kind of curious as to what species caused that. Suffice to say that was NEVER a normal occurrence on Atlantic coastal beaches (it's not that uncommon in the Gulf). Something's seriously hosed up down there.

It's just sad thinking that some of our best beaches exist only as memories now.

Tom Morris said...

Also, that grassbed you posted pictures of is.... not healthy. Normally those sea grasses are NOT covered in an additional layer of slimy hair -- the presence of that suggests that the nitrite and phosphorous levels in the water are WAY too high.

Too much sewage and fertilizer runoff. :(

Geniusofdespair said...

Thank you Tom!

Elvis Cruz said...

The public shouldn't have to pay to park their car at a public park.

Parking at Crandon and other county parks used to be free. As it should be again.

What's next? Having to pay to use the library?

Anonymous said...

I don't go to Crandon or Bill Baggs by the light house any more, not enough shade for my in youth over exposed skin.
I would venture to speculate, if this is over exposure to nutrients, the sewage plant, further up the island, or the recent successful pumping of street flood water on Miami Beach, to be the likely culprit.

Wednesday eve, PBS had a hour long report about the sorry state of lake O, it touched on all the points, if you could read between the lines. It sounded like it was pre edited by big sugar. absolute no mention of big sugar, just agriculture with a picture of cows gracing behind.
Also some scientist expressing them self's very cautious.

One statement caught my attention dough, "In my live time, the state of Florida went from 2 to 20 Million people!"
May be that's part of the troubles on Crandon Beach.

Unknown said...

Run from all the bad sources -- this is part of bigger picture - Biscayne Bay is in deep trouble. too awful.

Anonymous said...

I only swim at the beach at the end of Cape Florida where the current is strong and flushes out whatever pollution or debris is in the water. The near shore waters in Miami are getting increasingly polluted - look to those Miami Beach pumps and more to come from other municipalities like Miami installing pumps to keep out Sea Level Rise and king tide flooding. So far there is absolutely no responsibility taken for this pollution. Add in sewer leaks from decrepit infrastructure. Miami Dade County should be investing more in protecting our environment but local officials and the media are too distracted ted by tourist and sports baubles like the Beckham stadium and Jungle Island adventure park. Some serious activism needs to turn this around before it's too late. Is the water being tested by DERM? Can the public see the results? Will Miami Beach be required to change its practice of dumping polluting water into Biscayne Bay?