Amid destruction and uglyness lies beauty and wonder. Today was another day off from Lifeboating but again a kind of busman's holiday drew my attention. Joined by Mark 'Jedi-Master' Rainsley and his talented (and tolerant) wife Heather, I travelled west to paddle through the scene of the MSC Napoli disaster. In some ways guilt was strongly present, to be joining the hoards of much reviled scavengers and rubber neckers. However, I felt a strong urge to see the extent of the damage for myself rather than just rely on inflated or distorted press stories.
It certainly was an impressive sight and apart from a small amount of oil on the water all seemed well. We got good and close, close enough in fact to be firmly escorted from the premises by the coastguard patrol boat.
We skirted round the exclusion zone and came back into the shore at Brancsome to see for outselves the extent of the destruction caused by the looters.
This was extensive and, though superficial, still completely un-necessary. All the discarded contents of containers had been dumped and then inevitably washed along the shore for at least 5 or 6 miles.
Despite there being few traces of oil, we did see a number of oiled sea birds. Clearly a great deal has been done to save as many as possible, however, there are many like those we saw which will avoid being collected and will inevitably die from ingesting the oil. A sad end to the day........
5 comments:
Nice to see you're putting the camera to such good effect already :-)
Very kind, I'm now playing with some tweatks on photoshop, very interesting!
good to have a such a sharp first hand objective account
after all the fuss about people who did NOT put the stuff there taking it away, I am waiting for a similar outpouring of rage about the people who DID put it there NOT taking it away !
Haddock, I am in no way bothered about folk taking stuff away. On the contrary. I am however bothered about their method of operation. Everything of value removed, anything without value removed from the container and left to be strewn for miles by the elements.
There was a fair amount of activity going on at Branscombe to clear up the mess, a road was being prepared down the beach and digger type things were filling skip bags with detritus.
There was also evidence of fires having been lit both next to and within containers, not sure who lit these or why........
Post a Comment