Guest guest Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 hola de panamá... for people interested in seaweed; i offered to call linda on her cell fone to guide her, best i could, on a seaweed walk. maybe someone up there could organize a group of interested people and find a good centrally located beach and we can do a group seaweed walk. i've only been to the coast a few times and don't know much about the marine plants out there but i was pretty tuned into puget sound north of deception pass. marine algae have a season just like terrestrial plants, so timing would be essential. there's not much happening seaweed-wise in puget sound now but the brown nori should be coming on. i don't remember the correct name for brown nori and it's not something that grows in abundance in puget sound and it's tricky to harvest, so it might not be worth peoples time unless you just wanted an outing. and thinking about it, the only plentiful brn nori spot i know of is chuckanut state park just south of bellyham. i collected about 10 species but most where not abundant however about mid may, during the low, low tides is a good time to collect iridea, one of my favorites. fucus is best in early june but can be found most all year. sea lettuce is plentiful in summer in the right area. kelp (nereocystis luetkeana) in puget sound is, imo, best, and most abundant after the 1st of sept. but others harvest in mid summer. a boat is necessary to harvest kelp and a bonus, but hard to find and gather, is what i call red nori, another seaweed which attaches to the kelp whip. it's flavor reminded me of beef steak w/o the karma. probably an easier way to get puget sound kelp would be to track down carla lamore at tide water herbs on orcas island. she air dries and has a nice product. she harvests earlier in the summer than i did so her stuff is a little different than what i offered but it's excellent stuff. she also has other seaweeds and terrestrial herbs. if you're interested in a bulk purchase from carla, i'd suggest waiting for the upcoming season and buying a quantity and vacuum bagging it. another idea is to do a co-op bulk buy and split it up. so if anyone wants to organize a seaweed walk, pmail me directo at < kelpguy2 at gmail.com > and we can take it from there. maybe the group could do a campout at the park on shaw island : ) norm : ))~ ~~~ interesting place, this panamá ~~~ 00 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 27, 2009 Report Share Posted March 27, 2009 One of the few areas of news I read in depth is related to regional clean water issues. I'd be nervous about eating any seaweed collected south of Deception Pass. Puget Sound is following in the steps of Chesapeake Bay, and while not dead, is closer to dead than fully alive and healthy, and is steadily getting worse. Its a very skinny body of water, surrounded by major pollution sources, and so doesn't get flushed out with clean water fast enough to prevent the pollution from building up to levels high enough to kill off life living in it. North of Deception Pass, there is far less pollution being added to the water, much more water to dilute it, and more tidal action to flush out the pollution into the ocean. One of the values of seaweed is its ability to filter out toxins from the water and to concentrate minerals. If there are toxic heavy metals in the water from local pollution sources (there are lots of these around Puget Sound), the seaweed will concentrate the heavy metals along with everything else. This is why the companies that commercially market seaweed go to such lengths to emphasize how pure and pristine the waters are where they do their harvesting. Since the whole ocean is contaminated now to some degree, there isn't any truly pristine saltwater left anywhere on Earth. However compared to the water around Seattle, the water around the San Juan Islands is really clean. To over simplify it, the further south you go in Puget Sound, the worse the water pollution. For instance, the water around Tacoma gets flushed out with water already polluted by Everett, Seattle, and Bremerton. Carpooling can really reduce the cost of campground and ferry fees. Keep in mind that many parks don't allow the collecting of anything within the park boundaries. Something with a shallow draft, like a canoe, is handy for getting to rocks exposed by the low tide that you can't get to easily or safely on foot. Most parks allow you to launch canoes by carrying them to the beach, so the canoe would also be useful for getting outside the boundaries of the park to do your collecting. May your day be filled with clarity, grace, strength, progress, and warm laughter, Roger - " kelpguy " <kelpguy2 Thursday, March 26, 2009 11:44 AM a seaweed beach walk proposal for people interested in seaweed; i offered to call linda on her cell fone to guide her, best i could, on a seaweed walk. maybe someone up there could organize a group of interested people and find a good centrally located beach and we can do a group seaweed walk. i've only been to the coast a few times and don't know much about the marine plants out there but i was pretty tuned into puget sound north of deception pass. .... probably an easier way to get puget sound kelp would be to track down carla lamore at tide water herbs on orcas island. .... so if anyone wants to organize a seaweed walk, pmail me directo at < kelpguy2 at gmail.com > and we can take it from there. maybe the group could do a campout at the park on shaw island : ) norm : ))~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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