Marine Botanist needed

Any Marine Botanist's out there????

I need help ID'ing this stuff that is forming all over the house boat's pontoons.

Attachment 26000
Attachment 26001
The pontoons were freshly coated with tar before re-launching in the lake and were nice and clean all summer.

Now that the lake temps are dropping (72 degrees right now) this stuff showed up.

I have never seen this type of stuff on a boat before, I at first thought is was fish egg sacks, but a quick poke with an ore found out differently.

Anyone have an idea? And any way to remove it?

I may have to hire someone with some scuba gear to remove it, the kids don't like to swim near the boat anymore as they have no idea what it is and will it eat them.

You said Lake so I will presume fresh water.

Look here.

Code:

---

http://askanaturalist.com/jelly-like-blob-under-my-dock/

---

Harmless to people by the way.

well that was an interesting site, but it did mention that someone had an allergic reaction to one, it felt like poison oak.

Now how to get rid of this gunk????

I just got the boat back in, and removing it to clean it would be $1550 each way.

Sounds like just take your boat out and running it.

Just a suggestion. You might try using a gas powered pressure washer and adapt the wand to reach under the pontoon's and never have to enter the water.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wattso99

Sounds like just take your boat out and running it.

---

Good idea but it's a 50' x 20' house boat, it does not go fast enough to get that stuff off, it's also a big pain in the back side to re-hook it up to the mooring ball.

The pressure washer is an idea, I have a AC powered water pump, I could run it via generator to supply the water to the pressure washer, I will have to see if I can get an extension wand for it.

The problems are that the pontoons are 50 feet long by 4 feet wide and it's about 2 feet under water to this mess.

Are the pontoons/Hull fiberglass or metal?

You need to moor it in shallow water and get that pressure washer going. If you can do that in 3' of water and then you can stand up and use the washer easy.

We do that up here with friends cruisers to blow the dam Zebra Mussels off. Make it a beer party.

Only other way is to trailer it or dry dock it. It's a big boat for sure.

Hope you have a GFI on that electric pressure washer......................