Time Warp

I didn't get my call to volunteer today but I went down to the beach anyway. I needed to see for myself what was going on. Driving their I felt as if there had been no oil spill. Sunny day, people out walking, pushing prams and on skateboards. The first stop I made was at Pilot Bay which is buffered from the spill by a strip of land. The Mount itself stands at the end like the dot on the letter 'i' or an explaination mark. Getting out of the car I immediately heared the choppers over head and I was hit by the industrial smell of oil. This was real after all.

Every where people can access the beach from has warning signs telling us to stay off. Dotted along the otherwise deserted beach were volunteers in protective suits.

It was an odd feeling. I expected to see the oil. I couldn't see it but I could definitely smell it and the people cleaning kept adding little blobs to their bags.

I crossed over to the other side of the land strip to the main mount beach. This place is a tourist hot spot in summer and the sea itself important both environmentally and financially to our area.

Standing there taking these photos I felt sure I was in some sort of a time warp. One one side of the street people sat at cafes, they ate lunch and crowded the streets. The other side was completely empty. An endless coastline and not a single person on it. I was standing in the middle with my camera and it felt like I was stuck between 2 worlds, like no one had told the busy side of the street that there had been a catastrophic oil spill. If it hadn't have been for the smell and the emptiness I could have almost not known myself.

I didn't photograph the people who stood on these dunes like me. Some were quiet and reflective, others talked about the spill as if they were discussing the weather.

"Oh yes..bit of a spill over there...nasty thing...but such a nice day out, should we get lunch?"

It was surreal.

You may recognise this part of the beach from this photo that I posted at the start of the year.

The nakedness of the beach stayed with me when I left.

It was the only real sign that anything had happened here. Driving towards Papamoa I came across a road block almost immediately. Papamoa has been badly hit by the spill and if I thought getting to the beach at the Mount was hard it had nothing on Paps!

These trucks were taking away huge skip bins filled with toxic gunk. Further up were the police, the army and security firms all making sure that no one got through except media and trained personale. They kept the traffic moving and thanks to the dunes blocking the view from the road I didn't get another photo. Below is a media photo of what I would have seen had I been able too. This area is much closer to the shipwreck and in the direct line of fire.

Sad, very sad.

I am glad I went despite the bizzare time warp feeling. It's frustrating not being able to do anything but I'm only 1 of 4500 people who've registered to volunteer. This is good! Hopefully the oil will stay onboard the ship and not all of us will get a turn to help clean up our coast...fingers crossed.

Death toll:

Human 0

Birds 1000+

Seals 2

Fish, squid and crabs untold.

If you missed my first posting on the oil spill you can see it here.

Black Tide. Troubled Times.

 Black Tide. Troubled Times. This has been a sad, sad week in NZ. The biggest maritime disaster in NZ waters and it's not over yet.

    

A few days ago the container ship RENA struck a well documented reef in our harbour. Since then 350 tonnes of oil have spewed into our precious ocean, swamping our beaches and poisoning the sea. Untold marine animal lives have been lost. People's livelihoods are at threat. It will take years to recover from this already...and this ship still has about 1500 tonnes of oil on board. The ship is breaking up, the containers are posing an additional threat as 88 of them are already bobbing in the sea or have crashed into the sea.

A volunteer helping to clean the beach. This photo was captured a few days ago. The beaches are now closed to the public and those that do volunteer are having to be trained and are having to take precautions against getting sick. This is nasty, toxic, devastating stuff.

The army has been called in. Since this photo was taken people on the beach are now being issued with face masks and protective suits. Volunteers and locals being exposed to the oil's fumes are becoming sick with headaches, respiratory problems, blurred vision..can you imagine how bad this is for our sea? The birds and fish? This is our heritage getting poisoned and it makes me sick that this is a MAN made disaster!

A poor bird, a shag that didn't make it. The last I read about 500 seabird had washed up dead, including rare albatross's and penguins. I am so sad. Rescue centres are set up for cleaning oil off birds, manned by trained volunteers. Unfortunately more dead birds are being found than alive ones. Fortunately no seals have been found. At this time of year whales are on their migratory path past the reef the boat hit, their natural route and food chains are disrupted and they have such a long way to go before they reach the Antarctic.

This beach, these waters are what Tauranga is built around. We live near the sea, play in the sea, eat from it. Not now. Black Tide and Troubled Times doesn't quite cover the gravity of this situation.

Two of my kids fishing from the wharf where boats now stay moored, unable to fish and unable to move in these waters for fear of hitting containers.

This beach where we collected shells, drew pictures, laughed, played, made memories...

Now looks like this...

No words can express the sadness and frustration felt so many of us.

There is good come of this, face book (where I got most of the images, public domain) has several support pages. Pages to discuss the disaster, pages for volunteers involved in both clean up and food runs for those on the beach. Local business donating food to feed the people cleaning up this awful mess, even teenagers organising the collection of baked good. People giving up there time to come together. Messages of support from ex-pat kiwis feeling the pain. Offers of accommodation for out-of-towners who've come to help. It makes me proud to see the kiwi spirit alive and fighting, it's just a shame that it's because of something so terrible. We have an election coming up and this disaster has thrown the issue of deep-sea oil drilling into the public spotlight. If we can't cope with this how could we cope with a deep sea leak? It's good to get people talking, debating and hopefully voting accordingly. When will we learn? Man did this! Not mother nature, not global warming. It was human activity.

I'm hoping to receive my call to volunteer tomorrow, people have to go in teams and do an hour training first.  I'll keep you posted, if you are reading this from NZ please support the Bay where you can, it will be very much appreciated.

If anyone see's a photo here taken by them and  is offended by my use of these photos please tell me and I will remove them. As far as I know all images are in the public domain, with the exception of my photos (photo's 6,7,8)