sv Bella Rose

Ahoy,

Sami asked me to explain a bit more about this area to help people not familiar with the local landscape, and therefore how the BP oil spill is effecting this area. I used Google Earth and generated three (3) images of this area.

The first is a broad picture, showing the opening to Mobile Bay to the west, about 30ish miles, and Pensacola Pass to the east about 15 miles. Perdido Pass is in the middle of the photo.

The second photo is zoomed in a bit. The point I am making, this area is an island. There is a small tide along the gulf coast of approximately one foot. Often the wind raises or lowers the water more than the tide, north winds push the water out and south winds blow water in. The "back-waters" in the photo are salt water.

The third photo is zoomed in on Perdido Pass. My point here, Mobile Bay is 30 miles west and Pensacola Pass is 15 miles east, Perdido Pass is the ONLY access to the back-waters between the two. The Coast Guard insisted this pass had to remain navigable. There were booms in the area but the pass remained open. Note that near the bridge you can see in the photo the pass is less than 700 feet across.

Now that oil has made it through the pass, the Coast Guard has agreed to closing Perdido Pass. This will take several weeks to accomplish and the oil is damaging the inland areas. If they would have closed off this MINOR pass weeks ago all of this could have been avoided.

I hope this provides more detail to help you better understand the area and the effects of the BP oil spill on this area.

CaptRob