Even though they risk losing their BP contracts and face a federal government apparently determined to paint them as fools, some heroic Gulf boat captains continue to stand by their reports that miles-long slicks of oil are floating toward the Mississippi River delta. Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard is issuing a denial (imagine that), saying the massive expanse of material "appears to be algae." The Times-Picayune out of New Orleans is reporting the Coast Guard's algae assertion, but also quotes a Gulf boat captain as saying: "I've never seen algae that looked orange, that was sticky, smelled like oil and that stuck to the boat and had to be cleaned off with solvent." The TP said that one captain, who like others wished to remain anonymous for fear of losing BP work, told the paper: "I'll wait for the lab reports. In fact, we're also sending some samples off." And this from the TP report: "Boat captains had said Friday they had become frustrated by a lack of response from the Coast Guard after a week of reporting the sightings." This echoes eyewitness reports we've been getting for weeks that there's plenty of oil floating around – to go along with however ...
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