really hampered the skimming effort offshore and near the spill site, also in mississippi, alabama and florida. so they really lost five days last week because of hurricane alex and the remaining remnants of that 120ir8 storm and now they re dealing with patchy storms and that s really hindering a lot of the efforts to try and contain and corral that oil. while we were out there, we got a chance to look up and look down and see some of the areas surrounding the a-whale that has the capacity to take in 500,000 barrels of oily water per day. there s a lot of hype, but the coast guard has been skeptical saying it needs a little bit more testing, because it s such a large tanker, but the problem is this oil spill is not one big