After the recent storms, runoff from Snow Brook and each of the streams in that zone, whatever their size, have made clear viewing the areas of So Cove and up into Smith Cove near impossible to do. In addition, the current is strong as evidenced by the angle of the grasses and submerged long stemmed vegetation and that made it harder to stall over vegetation I wanted to study. That said, it was possible to see the tips of many native plants beginning to poke up toward the water’s surface. Grasses of all kinds were visible and I caught sight of a lonely red water mite—a sweet tiny creature.
But what was significant in the murk were the enormous brown clouds of Filamentous algae. “Enormous” as in close to the length and width of my paddle board. (See the images below.) At first, it felt like I was coming up on some large rocks but when poked with my paddle I found it was the algae I know. There were many sightings of the green Filamentous laying over the brown. I can presume the brown color to the algae at this time of the season came from the silt that has drained nonstop into the lake after the past storms. Filamentous algae often changes its color through the season from green to brown and golden and changes from lying underneath the water's surface to turning into matted material floating on top. I can presume the brown color to the algae came from the silt that has drained nonstop into the lake after the past storms.
I covered all of Snow Brook Inlet, and the southern end of Smith Cove from grids #279 and #280 and all those south.
Notice the top end of my paddle as a scale in the image.
Green algae laying over the brown.
I realized quickly that this was not a large rock.
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