Went to Sand Key Park last night and the little stream that empties the tidal pools on the beach that is usually a 3" wide trickle was 2 ft deep, 10 ft wide and rushing like a river. One of my flip flops came off and I had to chase it before it got carried out to sea LOL. The erosion is really bad though, next to the stream was a cliff about 5 ft high that was continuing to collapse as I left.
I found a huge bucket full of the most beautiful shells. Unfortunately a baby octopus was hiding in one of them and died at home when I poured bleach into the bucket to let them soak overnight. My brother and I both always throw shells back into the water that we find that are occupied and last night was no exception. Unfortunately the little guy was hidden deep in the shell and didn't even appear when I shook the water out before dropping it into the bucket. Another unfortunate thing we noticed was the number of huge pieces of hard coral everywhere. The coral reefs out in the gulf must have taken a real beating from Ivan.
It was good we went to Sand Key and not Clearwater Beach itself. Clearwater Beach got flooded by the afternoon tide and the parking lot at Pier 60 had 2 ft of water in it. High tide at 3am was expected to cause more flooding. I bet it brought in some more magnificent shells too.
Not worried at all about Hurricane Jeanne. It's only a Cat 2 with maximum sustained winds of 75mph. Hell I endured about 16 hours of winds that strong with Frances without incident. And even if it makes landfall on the east coast by the time it gets to me it will be no more than a strong typical summer shower.
