[kj] (OT) Natural disasters

bongo humanhybrid666 at gmail.com
Wed Feb 27 16:20:57 EST 2008


i dont think i shared my whale story before, so here goes...!

was at the beach surfing one night with my mate keiron...
the first whales beached themselves outside the harbour just before
dark, it was fucking intense, such big animals in such a
confined/localised area at dusk was very surreal... after dark the
handful of people gave up and most of us went home, a few stayed on...
we had to swim across the harbour entrance to get back to the carpark,
and the channel was full of phosphorus - every movement in the water
glowed, and so swimming thru it was an experience i shall NEVER
forget! (have since wondered if the stranding and the phosphorus were
somehow related..)

the next morning the scene at the beach was worse - it was heartbreaking...
there were about 80 pilot whales either in the shallows, or on the
sandbank inside the harbour on the outgoing tide... the water was
getting shallower and already there were many dead whales high and dry
on the sand. someone was going around with a spray can and marking a
big X on the dead ones... there were alot of X's... some were savaged
as well, during the night sharks had come in and had attacked some of
the distressed and/or smaller whales, which made our swim the night
before seem somewhat dangerous!
most of the school kids had the day off to help out, and the idea was
to get every whale attended to to either keep it wet if it was on the
sandbar, or keep them together in the shallows until the tide turned.
me and my cuz had a young one which we manhandled around and tried to
keep control of in waist deep water. after many hours the tide turned
and the co-ordinaters gave the word for everyone to try and walk the
survivors up the harbour out to the ocean, a few hundred meters or
so.. it was chaotic - any swimming whales were still confused and
stressed out, and many swam the wrong way and had to be herded by
boats...
by afternoon most were dead. only about 20 - 30 made it back out to
sea, and only after many more hours of coaxing away from the shore.

a day or two later, i went for a walk to have a smoke at the cliffs
overlooking the sandbar...
it was another moment i'll never forget... they had to remove the
carcasses by helicopter to bury them somewhere safe... in my mind, i
can still see it, like a cartoon... a perfect halfwhale, cut in the
middle (by chainsaw) suspended beneath a helicopter by a rope from the
tail... freaky shit!

this was about 20 years or so ago, and writing about it now has
brought it all back...

may not be a natural disaster as such, but it certainly felt like one.




On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 9:05 AM, Brendan <bq at soundgardener.co.nz> wrote:

> I can't beat being an earthquake with any of my shit, even my saving the

> beached whales story.

>

> >

> >

> > I ve been a Earthquake that measured 6 on the Richter scale and I ve

> > also spent the night out in a sandstorm , I ve also been in the Monsoon

> > and been in some very windy days, although it didn't reach hurricane

> > status.

> > Can anyone better that ?

> > _________________________________________________________________

> > Free games, great prizes - get gaming at Gamesbox.

> > http://www.searchgamesbox.com_______________________________________________

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> >

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