If you are still up North you might be thinking about bringing out your rakes and leaf blowers to clean up the leaves scattered around your yard. But on Sanibel, we’re raking up stinky dead fish off the beach thanks to red tide. Officials say winds from hurricane Matthew may have pushed the red tide south. The beach has been very smelly for over a week.

Gulf Pines residents Pam and Tom Miller saw a Sanibel Public Works employee on a pay loader yesterday along our Gulf Pines beaches picking up the biggest of the dead fish such as sharks and groupers. A plan was hatched to rake up the remaining smaller fish into piles for pick up also, but Public Works needed to have the heavy pay loader off the beach by the 1:00pm high tide. Plan B was quickly developed and Gulf Pines neighbors collected three bags of fish and carted them down the beach path in a wheel barrel for Tuesday trash pick up.

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Dead fish lying on the Gulf Pines Beach. Photo by Dean Caple.

Raking up the dead fish. Photos above and below by Merry Merryfield.

The crew: Doug and Sandy Nering, Mayri and Dean Caple, Jim Colombo. Photo by Merry Merryfield.