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The cap is holding. The oil is biodegrading. The tropical storm became just a time-consuming nuisance. I'll stop this series and go back to my normal posting of daily photos with an oil photo thrown in here or there.

These are shrimp boats docked when they should be fishing. Money lost. How many more seasons will they lose because of the Deepwater Horizon disaster?

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Winter fun digging. If you did this today, there would be a line of oil beneath the top layer.

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These are the tracks of the blue herons that live a the point, where the Gulf of Mexico flows into the bay beside Pensacola.

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Seaweed and oil blobs from a few weeks ago. I wonder what will wash onto the shores once Tropical Storm Bonnie blows through.

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More of the natural black/brown blobs of seaweed that washes ashore seasonally along the Gulf of Mexico.

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To be fair, there are always times when the white sands of Pensacola Beach are littered with the weeds of the sea, which is what those dark brown blobs are at the edge of our volleyball court. This year that seaweed came with oil.

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I won't let my kids do this for years with all the oil that has been found in the sand.

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The Gulf waters closest to Mobile Bay aren't the bluest at the shoreline due to the tannins that leach out of the organic matter in the estuaries. If you look close enough at the top of the photo, you can see some natural gas production rigs.

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A shrimp boat in the Gulf of Mexico just off Dauphin Island in August of last year. You don't see this right now since fishing in this area is currently closed. 

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This is Bubba, a blue crab we caught while vacationing on Dauphin Island, AL last August. We let him go along with the hermit crabs you see below him. Who knows if Bubba and his progeny will survive in good enough numbers after the oil has fouled the shores of this barrier island. The oil isn't flowing now, and for that I am grateful to the engineers who figured out how to place this current cap.

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This beach had been raked after being cleaned for the 4th of July weekend. I intentionally enhanced the contrast so that the tar balls could be seen. Compare the white sand on the dunes in the background to the oil-stained sand in the foreground. The superintendent at this site said that the oil was 10 layers deeps. Click on it to really get the gist of it.

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Unsullied shores, or when the coast was clear.

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At the Gazebo was the place to meet when I was in high school and college. Hurricanes took it out. Jimmy Buffet has built his own version, Landshark Landing. That's me, who didn't catch the frisbee my flight student boyfriend threw to me. I'm pretty sure he tossed it badly just to see me run.

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The park rangers hand this out to each visitor. I get angry, sad, and then satisfied that no one is covering up the fact that there is oil on the beaches. At least on July 11th, the beaches weren't bad. Just don't dig down. It's there, lurking.

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The beach was wonderful even in Fall and Winter. This is November in 2006.

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I'm used to hurricane guides being distributed by the local newspapers. An oil guide is a first for me, though.

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Heedless of contaminating the rest of the beach, some people used this wall to scrape the tar balls from their shoes.

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Down that hole should live a ghost crab. I hope it is still living. (Fort Pickens, Pensacola Beach, Florida, July 2nd).

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Compare this capture of Pensacola Beach with some of my earlier ones. That brownish sand? Not right--not ever on the Gulf coast of Florida. Those dark dots are tar balls. This is also a day where you would expect tons of people on this beach, except the oil keeps them away.

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I call this the hot fudge sundae tar ball. Found on Pensacola Beach, FL just to the east of Portofino Resort. We learned later that one of the companies contracted for clean up had already cleaned up the largest of the blobs.