I was away last week in Miami and thankfully I did not receive my OBE.

I was accused of sarcasm.

Two persons I knew and met at Miami Airport upon my return told me about the sargassum that had cost them dearly.

I did not receive my OBE – abbreviated for my One Blind Eye. My medical treatment on my poor right eye was successful, except for the Age-Related Muscular Degeneration that will sadly see me blind in it. About thirty years time!

As I will be 76 years old next week I am not that concerned.

A very nice young lady accused me of using sarcasm in reply to a remark she had made. I thought I was being very funny but as sarcasm is said to be “the lowest form of wit” I was quite rightly very hurt.

I retorted back, “I have been called worse”, although I cannot remember when or where?

She, obviously doesn’t understand English humour. It does require a high lever of IQ.

Now to the main meat of my Editorial.

iNews Cayman has published a number of articles on the seaweed/sargassum problem. One such article was published at the beginning of the year warning it was going to be a very bad year for the sargassum menace.

Other media houses here also reported there was going to be a problem. It’s not as if we haven’t experienced sargassum on our shores before.

Did anyone in government/DOE take any action to fight this menace when it came?

Not to my knowledge. I was not sent any Press Release from them.

It’s as if they weren’t prepared for it.

Before I left I saw and smelt the sargassum weed as I drove from Savannah up to East End. The weed is not just laying on the beach. It is floating in the sea in HUGE quantities.

The two persons I met and travelled back to Grand Cayman with have a small rental apartment business near East End. They told me they have now had a cancellation from some tourists who had booked one of their apartments. As soon as the tourists arrived and saw the floating sargassum over a mile wide and stretching out to sea, they demanded their deposit back, received it, and left.

My two friends told me they had complained about the sargassum problem outside their doors before the cancellation to DOE. Theyare now having to do it again.

Since I have been back there has still been no action to clean up.

I could really be sarcastic and ask if the powers that be are looking at the sargassum problem through their OBE?