Hemingway Days started in 1981 with a short-story competition and a look-alike contest. This year’s celebration concluded Sunday on the 125th anniversary of Hemingway’s birth on July 21, 1899.

As a novelist, short-story writer and journalist, Hemingway’s spot in the pantheon of American literature is undeniable and his legacy permeates the culture and character of Key West.

Hemingway’s great-grandson, Stephen Hemingway Adams, was born nearly three decades after Hemingway died. Adams said working with his grandfather, Patrick Hemingway, who was Ernest Hemingway’s second son, helped him gain a deeper understanding of his famous ancestor.

“I got to work with my granddad, and we put out a book called ‘Dear Papa,’ which was all of the letters between Ernest and my grandfather,” Adams said.

The difference between the public perception and the documented reality of Hemingway can be fuzzy. He loved big-game fishing in the Caribbean and hunting in Africa. He loved bullfighting, baseball, boxing and barhopping. But he also was a serious artist who won Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. He put so much of his life experiences into his writing that it can be tricky to separate the man from the myth.

Adams said he’s fine with some people loving the adventurer more than the writer.

“I think it’s a split, and I think that’s what’s fun,” Adams said of the throngs of look-alikes who visit Key West every year.

The Key West that Hemingway first visited in 1928 was a rustic fishing village, not a bustling tourist destination. Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline, had only planned a brief stop to pick up a car during their move from Paris to Arkansas, where Pauline’s family lived. But the car wasn’t ready and they had to wait several weeks.

Hemingway quickly made friends with local business owners and fishermen. The couple made frequent visits to the island and eventually bought a French Colonial home on a 1.5-acre (0.61-hectare) lot in 1931.

After spending most of his 20s in Paris, Hemingway embraced the vastly different island lifestyle, according to Cori Convertito, a curator at Key West Museum of Art & History at the Custom House.

“He doesn’t come here to act like a recluse and just write,” Convertito said. “He’s out at the bars all the time. He’s out fishing with people. He’s interacting in boxing matches.”

Convertito pointed out that Hemingway was in his 30s for most of the time he lived in Key West, not the white-bearded “Papa Hemingway” most look-alike contestants emulate. “A Farewell to Arms” was finished shortly after he began visiting Key West and that book’s reception, along with his coverage of the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, increased his fame.

Much of Hemingway’s time in Key West was devoted to big-game fishing with friends. Convertito said Hemingway began to pioneer new techniques after getting his own boat, the Pilar, in 1934.

“He was desperate to land a fully intact marlin,” Convertito said.

The slow process of reeling in a trophy fish left them vulnerable to sharks, similar to the giant marlin caught in Hemingway’s 1952 novel, “The Old Man and the Sea.”

Hemingway focused on catching fish and removing them from the water quickly. He was an early member of the International Game Fish Association and named a vice president in 1940.

He also became an advocate for the Florida Keys and the people who lived there. “To Have and Have Not,” which was published in 1937, is set in a Key West ravaged by the Great Depression.

Hemingway was a vocal critic of how the federal government responded to the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. The official death toll was 423, but more than 250 of the fatalities were World War I veterans hired through a federal jobs program to build the Overseas Highway, which connects the Florida Keys to mainland Florida.

Hemingway drove an ambulance during World War I and felt a particular kinship with the veterans. Corey Malcom, a historian with the Florida Keys History Center, said Hemingway joined the recovery efforts and used his own boat to pull bodies out of the ocean.

Michael Morawski, CEO of the Hemingway Home & Museum, credits his great-aunt, Bernice Dixon, as one of the first people to help preserve Hemingway’s legacy in Key West. The local jewelry store owner bought the house for $80,000 in 1961, shortly after Hemingway’s death. The home became a museum in 1964 and eventually was designated a National Historic Landmark.

“The only reason that she did it was to create a living memorial to Ernest Hemingway,” Morawski said.

Besides the historical and literary significance of the home, the museum also is famous for housing the Hemingway cats. About 60 polydactyl cats with a genetic mutation for extra toes continue to live at the estate. Some of these cats are descendants of the original white, six-toed cat that Hemingway was gifted from a ship’s captain.

The Hemingway Days festival started as a promotional stunt for Sloppy Joe’s Bar, one of Hemingway’s favorite hangouts. Michael Whalton was working as a manager at the bar in 1980 when he read about a Bad Hemingway Contest, where writers parodied Hemingway’s sparse, blunt style.

Whalton decided a look-alike contest and other activities around Hemingway’s July birthday might be a great way to attract costumers during the island’s slow season, when hot and humid weather scares many tourists away.

“I really didn’t know what to expect,” Whalton said. “I was getting nervous because we didn’t have anybody signed up for the look-alike contest, so I called everybody I knew in Key West who had a beard.”

The turnout was better than expected. The author’s younger brother, Leicester Hemingway, contacted Whalton and agreed to judge the look-alike contest with his wife and daughters. Whalton convinced another granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, Lorian Hemingway, to judge a short story contest.

David Douglas, president of the Hemingway Look-Alike Society, began attending the competition in 2000 and won in 2009. The 70-year-old Houston resident continues to return every year as a judge.

“I love the contest, I love the camaraderie all the contestants,” Douglas said.

David “Bat” Masterson, of Daytona Beach, became the newest “Papa” on Saturday. The retired pilot beat out 121 others in this year’s look-alike contest.

The look-alike group has evolved over the years into a service organization with hundreds of members around the world that has funded more than $350,000 in scholarships for Florida Keys students. The organization also sponsors a youth baseball team in Cuba, where Hemingway moved after leaving Florida.

The post Ernest Hemingway fans celebrate the author’s 125th birthday in his beloved Key West appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

The law, signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday, replaces an existing ban of releasing ten or more balloons within 24 hours. The Legislature approved the bill with bipartisan support in March and the law is praised by environmentalists.

“Balloons rank among the deadliest ocean plastic for key wildlife and are the deadliest form of plastic debris for seabirds. Florida’s new law will help save ocean animals from these preventable deaths,” said Hunter Miller, a Florida representative of the Washington-based environmental group Oceana.

The law will exempt children under 7. Anyone else can be fined for littering for intentionally releasing a single balloon. The new law also removes an exemption for biodegradable balloons. DeSantis signed the bill in private and didn’t make a statement on it.

The bill analysis prepared for lawmakers notes balloon releases are common at weddings, funerals, sporting events, graduations and various celebrations.

Following efforts to limit plastic bags and straws, the push by environmentalists against balloon releases has gained traction. The Florida Legislature has previously barred local governments from banning plastic bags. In 2019, DeSantis vetoed a bill that would have temporarily banned local governments from outlawing plastic straws.

Florida is a large peninsula with no point further than 60 miles (97 kilometers) from the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico. Balloons can stay afloat for days — and winds and currents can carry them far from their initial release point.

Once they deflate and fall, sea turtles confuse them for one of their favorite foods: jellyfish. Birds, manatees, whales and other marine life also eat balloons, which can block their digestive systems, leading to starvation.

“Balloon litter in waterbodies affects more than 260 species worldwide and has been identified as among the five deadliest types of marine debris in terms of the risk that it poses to marine wildlife,” said the legislative analysis, adding that animals can also get tangled in balloon strings.

The post Florida’s balloon ban will protect sea turtles, birds and other marine life appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

National Park Service archaeologists used new research to determine that the wreckage first spotted in 1993 near Dry Tortugas National Park is the HMS Tyger, the agency said in a news release late last week. The findings were recently published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.

The HMS Tyger was a Fourth-Rate, 50-gun frigate built in 1647. It sank in 1742 after running aground on the reefs of the Dry Tortugas while on patrol in the War of Jenkins Ear between Britain and Spain.

“This discovery highlights the importance of preservation in place as future generations of archeologists, armed with more advanced technologies and research tools, are able to reexamine sites and make new discoveries,” maritime archaeologist Josh Marano said in a statement.

Archaeologists surveyed the site in 2021 and found five cannons several hundred yards from the main wreck site, officials said. The guns were determined to be those thrown overboard when HMS Tyger first ran aground, leading archaeologists to confirm the wreck was, in fact, the remains of HMS Tyger.

After the ship wrecked, about 300 crew members were marooned for more than two months on what today is Garden Key. They erected fortifications on the island more than a century before the establishment of Fort Jefferson, which remains on the island today as a historical site.

Stranded survivors built seagoing vessels from salvaged pieces of the wrecked HMS Tyger and then burned the rest of the ship to prevent its guns from falling into enemy hands. The survivors used their makeshift vessels to travel 700 miles (1,125 kilometers) through enemy waters to British-controlled Port Royal, Jamaica.

The remains of HMS Tyger and its related artifacts are the sovereign property of the British government in accordance with international treaties.

—

The post Vessel off Florida Keys identified as British warship that sank in the 18th century appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Tens of thousands of spectators thronged the subtropical island’s historic downtown Saturday night for Fantasy Fest’s highlight event, a parade featuring over 40 motorized floats and costumed marching groups.

Illustrating the festival’s move toward a more PG-rated focus, its 2023 theme was “Uniforms and Unicorns … 200 Years of Sailing into Fantasy,” in salute to the Florida Keys’ bicentennial and that of the U.S. Navy’s presence in Key West.

“The parade really demonstrated the festival’s direction away from decadent aspects and into good fun and off-the-charts creativity,” said Fantasy Fest director Nadene Grossman Orr. “It feels like Fantasy Fest has entered a new era of creative expression.”

Parade standouts included a uniformed group with huge blue wings depicting the Navy’s elite Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Squadron, dancers in unicorn headdresses performing intrepid acrobatic feats, and an elaborate float and marching ensemble portraying a Kentucky Derby for unicorns.

Among other notable entries were a “litter” of elaborately costumed cats and a troupe dressed as characters from the blockbuster film “Barbie.”

Florida Keys tourism officials said Fantasy Fest brings approximately $30 million in annual revenues to the island chain and provides important fundraising opportunities for local nonprofit organizations. The 2023 campaign for festival king and queen raised more than $587,000 for the Florida Keys SPCA.

Fantasy Fest 2024, themed “It’s a 90’s Neon Cosmic Carnivale!,” is scheduled Oct. 18-27.

—

The post Florida’s ‘Fantasy Fest’ ends with increased emphasis on costumes and less on decadence appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Nyad and her Cuba swim expedition leader Bonnie Stoll helped return “Rocky,” a 120-pound (54 kilogram) female green sea turtle, to the Atlantic Ocean at Key West’s Smathers Beach as they marked the anniversary with her former support team.

On Labor Day 2013, nearly 2,000 people had lined the beach to welcome Nyad as she came ashore after her 111-mile (178-kilometer) odyssey, a nonstop swim lasting 52 hours and 54 minutes across the Florida Straits from Havana.

Succeeding on her fifth attempt at age 64, Nyad became the first person to swim from Cuba to the Keys without a shark cage — despite battling stinging jellyfish, nausea and other physical and mental challenges.

She joined personnel from the Turtle Hospital to carry Rocky across the sand on Sunday to the water’s edge.

“The thing I like about them is that they eat jellyfish,” quipped Nyad, referring to the diet of green sea turtles in the wild. “I wish we could have trained Rocky to swim right next to me and eat all the jellyfish that we came upon going across.”

Rescued in January by Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission officers and transported to the hospital, Rocky required an eight-hour intestinal surgery, breathing treatments, a blood transfusion and months of medications to survive.

After being guided into the water, Rocky swam away from the beach before diving down into the Atlantic as Nyad, Stoll and several hundred spectators applauded. Among them were more than 30 of Nyad’s Cuba swim support crew that returned to Key West for the 10th anniversary celebration.

Other weekend events in Key West also marked the anniversary including a Saturday beach party where Nyad and team members took turns sharing their memories of the swim.

Nyad’s swim has been turned into a new feature film, “Nyad,” starring Annette Bening as the swimmer and Jodie Foster as Stoll, her friend and trainer.

—

The post Diana Nyad marks anniversary of epic Cuba-Florida swim, freeing rehabilitated sea turtle in the Keys appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

An Islamorada community group that is spending $6 million to restore and preserve the Alligator Reef Lighthouse turned on its new solar-powered lights on Saturday to remind the public about the effort.

“Alligator Lighthouse was lit in 1873 and it stayed lit until about 2013, and then it went dark for 10 years,” said Rob Dixon, the executive director of Save Alligator Lighthouse, which took over the lighthouse’s title in late 2021. “And now our Statue of Liberty is lit once again.”

The lighthouse is named after the USS Alligator, a Navy schooner that ran aground on the reef in 1822 and sank.

Alligator and five other aging lighthouses off the Keys were important maritime navigational aids that once warned ships away from the area’s barrier coral reef. But modern-day satellite navigation made open-water lighthouses obsolete and such structures are being disposed of by the General Services Association.

A detailed engineering study of Alligator Lighthouse was completed to determine stabilization needs after many years in highly corrosive conditions.

Dixon said an engineering study determined that it will take six years and $5 million to $6 million dollars to save the Alligator Lighthouse.

“There’s nobody in this community that doesn’t want to help our project,” he said.

Dixon said fundraising is well underway with about $500,000 already raised, including $215,000 from the Monroe County Tourist Development Council.

—

The post 150-year-old Florida Keys lighthouse illuminated for first time in a decade appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

As Becker looked over the coral, crews of reef rescue groups arrived in trucks carrying more — brought up by divers in a massive effort aimed at saving the coral from an ocean that is cooking it alive.

“People jumped into action really quickly, as best as they could,” Becker said, wiping sweat from her brow.

Up and down the chain of islands that form the Florida Keys, coral rescue groups and government and academic institutions have mobilized to save the coral from a historic bleaching event that experts say threatens the viability of the third-largest reef tract in the world. They’ve been working long days and weekends in blistering heat for weeks to get as many specimens as they can onto land amid reports of some reef tracts experiencing near total mortality.

In mid-July, water surface temperatures averaged about 91 degrees (33 Celsius) off the lower Florida Keys, well above the average of 85 degrees (29.5 Celsius), according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports.

The hot water resulted in nearly 100% bleaching along portions of the reef, causing the corals to lose their zooxanthellae, the algae that gives them color and nourishment. If they don’t recover their zooxanthellae, they will ultimately die.

“We’re already seeing not just bleaching, but actual coral death out on the reef because the temperatures were so hot,” said Cynthia Lewis, director of the Keys Marine Lab, a research institute on the island of Long Key, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Miami, where rescue groups have already brought more than 1,500 pieces of coral. “And we can’t afford to lose more of our reef.”

Coral bleaching occurs naturally when waters warm significantly, including in 2016 in the Keys. But Lewis said the current situation is urgent for coral, which is vital to Florida’s economy, coastal protection and marine life.

The corals “don’t have a lot of time,” she said. “They’re literally sitting, stewing in the water out there in these hot, hot temperatures.”

A string of recent overcast and rainy days helped drop water temperatures slightly. But it will likely be late October or November before the coral samples can be returned to the reef, Lewis said.

What’s at stake?

The Florida Coral Reef is the world’s third-largest, extending about 350 miles (563 kilometers) from the Dry Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico to St. Lucie Inlet, some 115 miles (185 kilometers) north of Miami.

The reef is a first line of defense against erosion and flooding from hurricanes and tropical storms, Lewis said. It helps support commercial fishing and a thriving tourism industry, from snorkeling and scuba diving to recreational fishing. And they nurture “such an amazing amount of diversity and life” in the ocean around them, she said.

“In a normal situation, they’re like the rainforests of the ocean,” Lewis said. “They’re incredibly important.”

The world’s oceans have been record-setting hot since April, with scientists citing climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas along with a boost from El Nino, a natural warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide and generally heats the planet.

The bleaching occurred rapidly as the water temperature rose in July.

“We got kicked in the teeth because if happened so fast in the Lower Keys. I mean, within a week,” said Michael Echevarria, president of the nonprofit Reef Renewal USA.

Reef Renewal was among those who initially worked to move endangered coral into land-based facilities. More recently, they’ve worked to save coral in several of their own underwater nurseries in shallower water by moving them to deeper, cooler water, where they hang pieces of coral from tree-like structures.

Reef Renewal founder Ken Nedimyer called the coral bleaching “hard to watch and hard to experience” and said his group knew that coral stress would increase under climate change, but didn’t think it would come so soon.

“There’s a lot of people that think this isn’t real, that climate change is not real, and that the world is not warming up. And I don’t care what they say, it’s real. I’m living it right now and I’ve lived down here and done this for a long time,” he said. “And I’ve never seen this.”

Back at the Keys Marine Lab in Layton, the collected pieces of coral are placed in cooling trays set up on tables that hold between 40 and 400 gallons of seawater. The 85-degree water (29 degrees Celsius) makes for “much happier coral,” Becker said.

“We’ve seen some coral that have been really stressed offshore, come back into our tables and recover already,” she said. “They’re already getting color back. So that’s really encouraging to see that.”

The work goes beyond saving the coral. Becker and others are studying different types of coral to see which ones survive temperature stress and disease better, hoping to “build a better reef with more resilient corals,” she said. Scientists from the University of Miami have established a restoration research site off of Key Biscayne to do such work.

Jamison Gove, co-author of a new article in Nature about how Hawaii coral reefs weathered a 2015 marine heat wave that pushed ocean temperatures to their highest levels in 120 years of record-keeping, said his research suggests some corals off Florida may survive better than others depending on the health of local fish populations and runoff from land.

The Honolulu-based research oceanographer with NOAA said reefs that rebounded best after Hawaii’s heat wave were those that had both the most fish and the least exposure to sewage from cesspools and septic systems.

But he said local management measures won’t save reefs if people don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The effort to save Florida’s coral is appreciated by Jennifer Cullen, manager of Rain Barrel Village, a souvenir shop in nearby Islamorada.

“I’m worried about the coral. I’m worried about tourism, worried about stronger hurricanes, because we’ve already had Hurricane Irma, which was devastating for the Keys and tourism,” Cullen said. “It was a very long recovery, and I don’t know how much more of that we can take.”

—-

The post High ocean temperatures are harming the Florida coral reef. Rescue crews are racing to help appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Scientists are already seeing devastating effects from prolonged hot water surrounding Florida — coral bleaching and even the death of some corals in what had been one of the Florida Keys’ most resilient reefs. Climate change has set temperature records across the globe this month.

The warmer water is also fuel for hurricanes.

Scientists were careful to say there is some uncertainty with the reading. But the buoy at Manatee Bay hit 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit (38.4 degrees Celsius) Monday evening, according to National Weather Service meteorologist George Rizzuto. The night before, that buoy showed an online reading of 100.2 F (37.9 C).

“That is a potential record,” Rizzuto said.

“This is a hot tub. I like my hot tub around 100, 101, (37.8, 38.3 C). That’s what was recorded yesterday,” said Yale Climate Connections meteorologist Jeff Masters.

If verified, the Monday reading would be nearly 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than what is regarded as the prior record, set in the waters off Kuwait three summers ago, 99.7 degrees Fahrenheit (37.6 degrees Celsius).

“We’ve never seen a record-breaking event like this before,” Masters said.

The consequences for sea corals are serious. NOAA researcher Andrew Ibarra, who took his kayak out to the area, “found that the entire reef was bleached out. Every single coral colony was exhibiting some form of paling, partial bleaching or full out bleaching.”

Some coral even had died, he said. This comes on top of bleaching seen last week by the University of Miami, when NOAA increased the alert level for coral earlier this month.

Until the 1980s, coral bleaching was mostly unheard of. But “now we’ve reached the point where it’s become routine,” Enochs said. Bleaching, which doesn’t kill coral but weakens it and can lead to death, occurs when water temperatures exceed the upper 80s (low 30s Celsius), Enochs said.

Masters and University of Miami tropical meteorologist Brian McNoldy said while the hot temperatures do fit with what’s happening around Florida, Monday’s reading may not be accepted as a record because the area is shallow, has sea grasses in it and may be influenced by warm land in the nearby Everglades National Park.

Still, McNoldy said, “it’s amazing.”

The fact that two 100 degree measurements were taken on consecutive days lends credence to them, McNoldy said. Water temperatures have been in the upper 90s in the area for more than two weeks.

There aren’t many coral reefs in Manatee Bay, but elsewhere in the Florida Keys, scientists diving at Cheeca Rocks found bleaching and even death in some of the Keys most resilient corals, said Ian Enochs, lead of the coral program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.

“This is more, earlier than we have ever seen,” Enochs said. “I’m nervous by how early this is occurring.”

This all comes as sea surface temperatures worldwide have broken monthly records for heat in April, May and June, according to NOAA. And temperatures in the north Atlantic Ocean are off the charts — as much as 9 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit (5 to 6 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal in some spots near Newfoundland, McNoldy said.

—

The post South Florida waters hit hot tub level and may have set world record for warmest seawater appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

The corals should be vibrant and colorful this time of year, but are swiftly going white, said Katey Lesneski, research and monitoring coordinator for Mission: Iconic Reefs, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched to protect Florida coral reefs.

“The corals are pale, it looks like the color’s draining out,” said Lesneski, who has spent several days on the reefs over the last two weeks. “And some individuals are stark white. And we still have more to come.”

Scientists with NOAA this week raised their coral bleaching warning system to Alert Level 2 for the Keys, their highest heat stress level out of five. That level is reached when the average water surface temperature is about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) above the normal maximum for eight straight weeks.

Surface temperatures around the Keys have been averaging about 91 degrees (33 Celsius), well above the normal mid-July average of 85 degrees (29.5 Celsius), said Jacqueline De La Cour, operations manager for NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program. Previous Alert Level 2s were reached in August, she said.

Coral reefs are made up of tiny organisms that link together. The reefs get their color from the algae that live inside them and are the corals’ food. When temperatures get too high, the coral expels the algae, making the reefs appear white or bleached. That doesn’t mean they are dead, but the corals can starve and are more susceptible to disease.

Andrew Bruckner, research coordinator at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, said some coral reefs began showing the first signs of bleaching two weeks ago. Then in the last few days, some reefs lost all their color. That had never been recorded before Aug. 1. The peak for bleaching typically happens in late August or September.

“We are at least a month ahead of time, if not two months,” Bruckner said. “We’re not yet at the point where we are seeing any mortality … from bleaching. It is still a minor number that are completely white, certain species, but it is much sooner than we expected.”

Still, forecasting what will happen the rest of the summer is hard, De La Cour and Bruckner said. While water temperatures could continue to spike — which could be devastating — a tropical storm or hurricane could churn the water and cool it down. Dusty air from the Sahara Desert moving across the Atlantic and settling over Florida could dampen the sun’s rays, lowering temperatures.

Because of climate change and other factors, the Keys waters have lost 80% to 90% of their coral over the last 50 years, Bruckner said. That affects not only marine life that depends on the reefs for survival, but also people — coral reefs are a natural buffer against storm surge from hurricanes and other storms. There is also an economic impact because tourism from fishing, scuba diving and snorkeling is heavily dependent on coral reefs.

“People get in the water, let’s fish, let’s dive — that’s why protecting Florida’s coral reef is so critical,” De La Cour said.

Both scientists said it is not “all doom and gloom.” A 20-year, large-scale effort is underway to rebuild Florida’s coral back to about 90% of where it was 50 years ago. Bruckner said scientists are breeding corals that can better withstand the heat and are using simple things like shade covers and underwater fans to cool the water to help them survive.

“We are looking for answers and we are trying to do something, rather than just looking away,” Bruckner said.

Breeding corals can encourage heat resistance in future generations of the animals, said Jason Spadaro, coral reef restoration program manager for Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida. That could be vital to saving them, he said.

Spadaro and others who have visited the corals said they have noticed the coral bleaching is worse in the lower Keys than in the more northern parts of the area. The Keys have experienced bad bleaching years in the past, but this year it is “really aggressive and it’s really persistent,” he said.

“It’s going to be a rough year for the reef. It hammers home the need to continue this important work,” he said.

The early bleaching is happening during a year when water temperatures are spiking earlier than normal, said Ross Cunning, a research biologist at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. The Keys are experiencing water temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), which would normally not occur until August or September, he said.

The hot water could lead to a “disastrous bleaching event” if it does not wane, Cunning said.

“We’re seeing temperatures now that are even higher than what we normally see at peak, which is what makes this particularly scary,” Cunning said.

De La Cour said she has no doubt that the warming waters are caused by human-made global warming and that needs to be fixed for coral to survive.

“If we do not reduce the greenhouse gas emissions we are emitting and don’t reduce the greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere, we are creating a world where coral reefs cannot exist, no matter what we do,” she said.

—

The post Florida Keys coral reefs are already bleaching as water temperatures hit record highs appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Dr. Joseph Dituri set a new record for the longest time living underwater without depressurization during his stay at Jules’ Undersea Lodge, submerged beneath 30 feet (9.14 meters) of water in a Key Largo lagoon.

The diving explorer and medical researcher shattered the previous mark of 73 days, two hours and 34 minutes set by two Tennessee professors at the same lodge in 2014.

“It was never about the record,” Dituri said. “It was about extending human tolerance for the underwater world and for an isolated, confined, extreme environment.”

Dituri, who also goes by the moniker “ Dr. Deep Sea,” is a University of South Florida educator who holds a doctorate in biomedical engineering and is a retired U.S. Naval officer.

Guinness World Records listed Dituri as the record holder on its website after his 74th day underwater last month. The Marine Resources Development Foundation, which owns the lodge, will ask Guinness to certify Dituri’s 100-day mark, according to foundation head Ian Koblick.

Dituri’s undertaking, dubbed Project Neptune 100, was organized by the foundation. Unlike a submarine, which uses technology to keep the inside pressure about the same as at the surface, the lodge’s interior is set to match the higher pressure found underwater.

The project aimed to learn more about how the human body and mind respond to extended exposure to extreme pressure and an isolated environment and was designed to benefit ocean researchers and astronauts on future long-term missions.

During the three months and nine days he spent underwater, Dituri conducted daily experiments and measurements to monitor how his body responded to the increase in pressure over time.

He also met online with several thousand students from 12 countries, taught a USF course and welcomed more than 60 visitors to the habitat.

“The most gratifying part about this is the interaction with almost 5,000 students and having them care about preserving, protecting and rejuvenating our marine environment,” Dituri said.

He plans to present findings from Project Neptune 100 at November’s World Extreme Medicine Conference in Scotland.

—

The post Florida’s ‘Dr. Deep’ resurfaces after a record 100 days living underwater appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.