VERO BEACH — Hotels and restaurants on our barrier island report seeing an increase in business in recent days as the algae disaster to the south diverts tourists to Vero Beach, where the ocean and lagoon are unaffected by the Lake Okeechobee pollution that is plaguing Stuart.
A day after Independence Day, the Caribbean Court Boutique Hotel used Facebook and three exclamation points to tell the world: “Our Beaches are Open!!!”
With the toxic blue-green algae in Martin County’s waterways making national TV news, Vero Beach hotels such as Caribbean Court and South Beach Place wanted to spread the word that the smelly, guacamole-thick sludge has not affected Indian River County’s waterways and that they are open for business.
Edyta Zachariasz, Caribbean Court front office manager, said tourists who don’t know how far the algae slime in Stuart and the St. Lucie River is from Vero Beach were calling her hotel to get the lowdown on whether the bloom was contaminating waterways in Indian River County.
Zachariasz said she reassured them the algae blooms are miles to the south in Martin County.
Neli Santamarina, owner of South Beach Place, said tourists who had originally booked hotel rooms in the Stuart-Jensen Beach area were calling her boutique 18-room suite hotel to see if they could switch and stay here over the Fourth of July weekend.
“People were looking for rooms north of the algae,” Santamarina said. “We were putting it on social media and saying, ‘Hey, we’re fine.’”
The contamination was created by the Army Corps of Engineers releasing Lake Okeechobee’s water down the St. Lucie River to reduce the lake’s water level and avoid stressing the protective earthen dike that encircles the big lake.
Guests were also calling The Islander Inn on Ocean Drive to see if algae was a problem around here, said Doug Moreton, the motel manager. “People might want to come up here now,” he said.