More than 1,000 square miles of seaweed have been detected in satellite photos of the Caribbean, three times larger than the 2015 record.
Trinidad, West Indies. Giant wrack-line of Sargassum. Height here exceeded 2 m. The wall was definitely a barrier to nesting turtles. Captions: A Tale of Two Beaches: Tompire Bay, NE Trinidad; By John Weber, William Neal & Jeanette Arkle. Photo courtesy of: © Jeanette Arkle.

Excerpts;

Thick mats of seaweed have washed up on South Florida beaches in recent weeks, creating a tangled, squishy barrier between swimmers and the ocean.

The seaweed, a brownish variety called sargassum, arrived largely from the Caribbean, where rotting seaweed has piled up on beaches and driven away tourists…

Read Full Article; Sun Sentinel (06-20-2018)

Mysterious masses of seaweed assault Caribbean islands; Science Mag (06-11-2018)
The Caribbean is bracing for what could be the mother of all seaweed invasions, with satellite observations warning of record-setting Sargassum ​blooms and seaweed already swamping beaches…