CASPERSON BEACH

 We packed our things, said good-bye to Tampa and headed south.

First stop was recommended by some of Darrell's students.  They said to stop at Casperson Beach where you'll find millions-of-years-old shark's teeth that have been washed up onto the beach.  

It was a beautiful morning and a very pleasant beach.  However, as soon as we got out of the car I coughed, then Darrell coughed.  Must be something in the air.

We walked down to the beach where there were a dozen or so people searching the beach.  There were kids playing in the surf.

There was lots of dead fish on the beach, too.  That was probably because of the tides.  The tides that caused shells and teeth to be deposited here was also stranding fish here, too.

Soon I realized a lot of the people were coughing.  And there sure was a lot of dead fish on the beach.  But, since everyone seemed to be having a good time and some of them looked like they knew what they were doing with professional looking metal baskets for sifting through the sands in search of shells and shark's teeth we figured everything was normal.

We continued with the search, walking down the beach.  It was such a nice morning.

Darrell even found some teeth, and we collected shells.

As we were washing the sand off our shells, we talked to a local and asked him if he knew why we were coughing.  He said it was probably because of the Red Tide. We were startled. There were no signs on the beach warning of this. When that happens at home, it's on the news warning people not to go into the water and they post signs at the beaches.

We looked it up later - it's not a good thing.  It's very harmful to people and animals, and they should not go into the water.  That is why there were so many dead fish on the beach I guess (clue).  OMG.