Unspun sargassum. Photo: Tim Read, June 2025.

Lying on my back in the embracing warmth of a calm Caribbean sea aimlessly following the seemingly aleatory wanderings of soaring wisps of white cotton wool clouds, it is easy to allow random divergent thought patterns to converge or to align, however unfathomable the connections, not unlike the sharply defined parallel contrail lines of a (mercifully rare) passing plane.

Hence the fragile thread which strains to link sargassum, the concept of spin, and the comforts of old friendships.

Let’s face it, unless you are currently planning a holiday in the Caribbean or happen to be a marine biologist you are probably wondering – as I was originally – what, precisely old boy, is sargassum? Clearly, it does not sound particularly pleasant, but beyond that…no, stumped. Way out of my crease.

One of my quieter professional pleasures, as an international communications and language facilitator, is learning so much about phenomenon which I never previously contemplated.

I work with high-level non-native English practitioners. I meet extremely interesting people from a wide range of backgrounds: intellectually curious, already highly proficient in English, willing to finance their own studies, and generally unmoved by the latest fashions. This places upon me a constant obligation to stimulate their minds with relevant material, delivered in a challenging – and occasionally almost poetic – register.

One of my reliable sources is the Guardian, whose combination of intelligent topics and consistently accomplished writers makes it ideal for this purpose. My inaugural study for new students inevitably is often based on Dale Berning Sawa’s piece on gentrification in the French countryside, “Who complains about church bells and cicadas in France?”

It is beautifully written. So much so that Pierre-Emmanuel, a Geneva based investment banker, confessed to me – without malice – that he had never realized English could be as rich and poetic as French. High praise indeed.

More recently, with established students, I used Nesrine Malik’s article “The turning point that wasn’t”, a disturbing critique of Europe’s stance on Gaza. Having undone me early on with deliciously deployed word pabulum (now indelibly lodged in my active vocabulary), she then delivered the phrase “undeniable, indefensible and unspinnable”.

The mechanics of spin are easy enough to explain. But how does one convey unspinnable to a non-native speaker while invoking all it signifies to those of us steeped in three decades of UK and US political choreography? Spin doctors. Narrative primacy. Inconvenient facts massaged into convenient theories. Silken webs of language designed to seduce and sooth.  

Ahh yes – the halcyon days of Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson on one side of the Atlantic; Bill Clinton, Dick Morris, and George Stephanopoulos – the baby-faced model for Michael J. Fox’s Spin City – on the other. The art of selling the unsellable to the unsuitable, perfected during the late-1990s political circus of smoke and mirrors. Sorcerers revelling in their spells.

In retrospect, those memories are almost sepia tinted now, quaint rather than grotesque, naïve rather than malevolent. An old warlord softened into a benevolent grandfather.

Today’s opinion-forming, by contrast, is relentless. A full-metal jacket  emotional onslaught delivered daily, hourly, minute-by-minute by steroid fueled speed bowlers of certainty. Ask me not for my opinion, tell me exactly ad nauseum what it should be. Indeed, what it IS.

Time, then, thought convergence.

Noelia, a Madrid-based student and leading technical expert at the Spanish equivalent of the FDA, asked me for an everyday example of spin. Which leads us – inevitably, if obliquely – to sargassum, a variant of seaweed which is currently plaguing Caribbean beaches and irritating tour operators in equal measure.

Sargassum after the spinning process. Photo: Tim Read, June 2025

I first became aware of sargassum when a friend of mine in Buenos Aires casually dropped it into conversation. This was the same friend who had earlier persuded me that the Dominican Republic was the ideal meeting point for a long-awaited meeting a university friend from Bradford.  An almost perfect equidistance: I from Argentina, she from England. Climate, beaches, simplicity. Perfect.

The follow-up details alas, less so.

First, I booked the right hotel, but in entirely the wrong place, seduced by an online offer. Her delight at my thrift was somewhat diluted by the discovery that the hotel was 5 hours from where we wanted to be – the British equivalent of confusing the Hilton Chelsea with one somewhere in the North Sea, two hours north of John O’Groats.

In my defense (spin alert yellow), comparing the beauty of Samaná _ a tropical paradise – with the Arctic Ocean is self-deprecating, perhaps masochistic, but not wholly inaccurate. (Orange alert).

This minor blot was then expanded by my friend Gustavo’s belated mention of sargassum – a detail which had, inconveniently slipped his mind util after bookings were made.

Enter Ainhoa, my oceanographer student in Vigo, who patiently explained sargassum’s wondrous properties, supplemented by a series of Guardian articles rich in adjectives such as putrid, malodorous, and nausea-inducing. Prickly too, apparently – just in case Oh yes, and prickly, just in case the olfactory assault proved insufficient.

As counterbalance, one article explored sargassum’s potential as an alternative fuel, capable of sustaining the earth for years and generating wealth for some of the world’s poorest countries. Ecological virtues, philanthropic promise – alchemy of the highest order.

Surely my long-suffering friend – a highly qualified medical professional with an innate commitment to human welfare – would applaud such broader good?  Of course she would. But she also retains the undeniable right to a holiday free of stench and punctured feet.

Hence my altruistic decision to relocate us to a sargassum-free area – even if it required a five-hour car journey at the end of a nine-hour flight, at not inconsiderable additional cost?

Unspinnable sargassum. Photo: Tim Read, June 2025.

Instead of condemnation for selecting the wrong hotel and possibly the wrong destination, surely, I merit unrestrained acclaim. Championing the collective good over personal comfort. Financial sacrifice. Moral clarity.

Noelia, however, was unimpressed.

She conceded that I had tried but pointed out that I had committed the most cardinal error of spin: never spin until you know precisely what must be spun, in which direction, and with what force. Deny first. Then calibrate. Just ask Bill.

To be fair, humans do tend to interfere with nature’s perfection – but nature often ignores us. And most people, mercifully, are essentially kind. My friend never criticized me. At least within my earshot, which admittedly is a diminishing orbit.

Samaná, meanwhile, worked its quiet magic. A tranquil natural paradise, enhanced, noblesse oblige, by being entirely sargassum-free.

So, Noelia, if I could not spin the unspinnable, the baton passes to you.

Natricia Duncan and Abigail McIntyre’s excellent article, “From foul to fuel: how a seaweed problem could power the Caribbean”,  mentions the exotically named True Blue Bay Resorts House of Chocolate bakery in St. George’s, Grenada, whose cocoa based delicacies are produced using fuel derived from rotting sargassum.

Which immediately inspired the following advertising slogan, in Spanish:

“Hechos a base del cacao más fino, energizados por la caca más pura”. (“Made from the finest cocoa, powered by the purest s***”).

 Your homework mission, Noelia, should you choose to accept it, is to spin that.