Uncommon Caribbean is a site that’s dedicated to unusual and undiscovered Caribbean gems, and I recently had a guest post there about the ruins of La Belle Creole. Check it out to find out more about this unusual ruin. I’ve also heard that they’re building a new nightclub in the area, which may be the start of bigger changes, so anyone interested in the old Belle Creole might want to sneak in there fast.

Below are some photos of the area including ones that weren’t featured in the guest post. You can also check out this post about a previous visit.

A couple days ago, thousands of dead fish washed ashore in Salines d’Orient, presumably dead from a hypoxic event. Hypoxia is a lowered level of dissolved oxygen in the water that can kill fish and other animals when they do not have enough oxygen to breathe. Typically, this is caused by an influx of nutrients (e.g., sewage), which causes phytoplankton blooms and increased bacterial activity. This activity reduces oxygen levels in the water, which is what kills the fish.

In this case, there is a large amount of sewage in the water, and the impact was compounded, I have been told, by blockages in the outlets that allow the pond to exchange water with the ocean. Presumably, when the flow of oxygen-rich water into the pond was stopped, the overall oxygen level dropped.

The majority of the dead fish accumulated on the western shore of the pond, which seems natural because the wind would blow the fish in that direction. Above the channel connecting Salines d’Orient to Étang de Poissons I found no dead fish. This makes me think that it is possible that the hypoxic event may not have affected the entire pond, since even with the prevailing easterly wind, there are enough irregularities in the shoreline to catch dead fish floating west.

From what I could tell, there were a minimum of six species of fish dead on the shore, as well as some crabs. There were at least some living fish in the water as well, even near the western shore of the pond. It was unclear what other organisms may have been impacted, such as mollusks, and what the overall impact will be for shorebirds and seabirds that feed on the fish and other animals of the pond.

Overall, it was a pretty gruesome display of our inability to manage our impact on the island. Having just returned from a trip to the British Virgin Islands, I haven’t had a chance to research additional details on the exact triggers of the event, but at the very least it is a clear sign of how fragile our local ecosystems are as they bear the burden of so much human impact. Below are some photos of the pond and the various fish species killed.