Wednesday, October 12, 2011

NZ's biggest environmental disaster

Well how the hell did this happen? A reef known internationally before the 2nd world war, a reef tha'ts been used for diving, fishing decades and a reef I was flamn' hoping for a bit of big wave photography during the tropical cyclone season. It sits around 18km's off the Mount and only a few km's off Motiti island, so if a ship has to avoid an Island surely it would've known about the reef. With sonar eaquipment onboard and pre mapped out course in the ships computer to avoid the reef you just have to wonder was it an insurance job? A reef close to land so emergency services wouldn't too far away , quite a few empty containers onboard and not a huge amount of oil to lose money on you just have to wonder, insurance job or not?
  No matter what it shouldn't have bloody well happened. The bird life, fish, penquins, seals in the area are all going to be heavily affected, already dead oil covered birds and fish have turned up on the shores. And it's probably not just oil either, there could be substances on board classed as R29 which is hazardous material that reacts with water, what the hell that'll do is anyone's guess. You can't blame the government for it, it wasn;t there fault but surely a little more could have been done to stop the sludge reaching our shores.
  I just heard they can't even determine what the birds are that are washing up dead and covered in oil, everything in the sea and everybody that has something to do with the sea are going to be affected which brings me to my next bit, being back in NZ for 10 months and having not a great success seeing big heavy waves I was really looking forward to this tropical cyclone season to head out and explore Astrolabe reef and others not far away which are now indefinately out of bounds, I'm pretty pissed off and my heart goes out to those who are going to be affected by this environmental disaster.
  My parents have retired at Papamoa and they enjoy there daily morning walk down the beach, I can't imagine they'll be able to set foot on sand for a while now. All the holiday makers that bring much needed spending to the little shops and fruit markets in the area and also enjoy the golden sand and surf will almost cease for the summer, it's a snowball affect.
What do you do...

The reef

Saturday, October 1, 2011

A small dream come true

  I've been fiddling around with a logo for well over a year, finally I have a logo I am stoked with and hopefully you guys will be too. Maybe some day it might end up on clothing as this is something I'd really like to give a go at but for the moment it will be proudly on my photos. The logo will be stretched and warped to suit various things but here's the base. It's not often you do something and guinely think yup this is the way I want it, there's nothing I want to change about it, cool bananas I say.
  So with some luck I will see some heavy waves in the years to come and take a few shots, thanks Dave for the much needed advice and thanks to you all for following my work.
  Sláinte