PERDIDO KEY, Fla. — Sargassum blooms are starting to dominate parts of Northwest Florida’s shoreline. It’s brown, stinky, and it’s everywhere. It washes ashore every year.

It’s a type of seaweed that comes from the coast of Africa. Pictures of the massive blobs on our beaches have gone viral on the internet.

The county is doing its best to try and clean as much of this up, but so much of it is washing ashore, it’s hard to keep up.

“Instead of sand in our toes, we’ve got weeds in our toes,” said Alex Winter, visiting from Ohio.

“I’ve never seen it like anywhere I’ve visited, honestly,” said Tom and Bridget Graham from Mississippi.

Perdido Key is seeing the brunt of it.

“There’s still some clear spots down there where you can get in the water or you can just muscle through it,” the Grahams said.

The University of South Florida published a study that shows this year’s Sargassum bloom could be the largest yet.

The university is using satellites to track the 5,000 mile-wide stretch from the shores of Africa to the Gulf.

Sava Verazo is a local environmental scientist. He suggests not touching the seaweed.

“So it serves a purpose in nature for what it serves to help them promote the next generation of spawning animals in the Gulf. But at the same time, it’s a nuisance to humans,” Verazo said. “You’re talking about warm, moist areas is a perfect breeding ground for bacteria. So when you have things, like flesh eating bacteria out there, you don’t want to be handling the Sargassum. But I would say if you’re going to handle it all, you better use rubber gloves.”

Cleaning up the blooms is a daily process. Escambia County says tractors are out on the beaches every day trying to remove as much of it as they can.

“We have people who live out on the beach or out there on vacation,” commissioner Ashlee Hofberger said. “They’re out there every day. They will email and call to see what can be done to get it cleaned up. The longer it sits on the beach, the smellier it gets.”

Commissioner Hofberger says they’re focusing their cleanup efforts on the Casino Beach area.

“The majority of people who come to the beach, who live in the county or come to visit, do come to the core area right there at the Casino Beach parking lot,” said Hofberger. “With that being the area most exposed to the public, that’s the area we have been concentrating most of our efforts on.”

Many people WEAR News spoke with said the seaweed isn’t ruining their vacation. But they did say they may try and go to Pensacola Beach on Friday.