Eco blog

As if beached marine life. Female and male life savers lined up to sprint to their rubber duckie, jumped aboard to join the crew, full throttle out to a set-up off-shore where they enacted a rescue, I'm guessing, then raced back to the shore.  The photo does not convey the fast pace.

  Looming on the horizon are two of the coal ships that queue for coal from the Port of Newcastle, the fossil fuel city.
 The post-coal era will come but not soon enough. Progress. Westpac Bank announced it will not finance coal developments which is greeted both with applause and with outrage.
  Current tales in Newcastle are about upheavals in preparation for the super-car races of note,   meaning certain roads works have closed the roads and residential areas are very cross at finding themselves on a speed way. The east precinct is vintage style, where high rise or modernisation is probably banned - apart from super-car events!
  A new light rail to serve the long lean main street is about to start installation.  Apartments are spring up in the western precinct and change is accelerating in inner city Newcastle.      

Rubber duckie v great white

 Sun and surf Caves Beach.  Surf Life Saving Clubs event yesterday.

Off Hawkes Nest recently.
This is no Manchester By The Sea which is a very appealing setting for an unusual dramatic film.
The producers have copied the ways of the arty film genera which is fairly uncommon in an American work but it is unmistakably American yet unAmerican.
  We are not spared from conflict, irritations, silence, nor strong feelings yet amusement is often there and it generally moves with restraint. Yes, amazingly, exaggeration is limited. As well, the cold winter weather is special.
The score of classical music and other numbers is also surprising. The season finished in the city cinemas but the little independent Regal cinema came up with a screening good for those who missed out.

 When stormy weather was subsiding last week.  Billboards and signs took a beating.
  A hugh effort still took over a week to restore all power supplies so widespread was the damage.
  I guess we are fortunate that this incident occurred before privatisation went ahead or was it a bigger effort to make sure all was ready for that day? Now there is talk of controls and cheaper electricity.  Obviously all this electricity business is not clear to me.

Ocean swell and water temperatures have been ideal.  Warm days of May have broken the records. Is it global warming?  Hello deniers and the antiscientific

 Find the lone board rider off O'Connors Beach.

Far along the horizon no development is obvious. From here at Crescent Head, the Hat Head National Park stretches north into the blue yonder and O'Connors Beach would be on the far distant end.  Mid north coast of NSW.

Kuta Lines Surfshop, Redhead, where a local legend keeps shop in a unique building using recycled timber from old Lee Wharf on Newcastle Harbour. Large beams, sandstone blocks and other large pieces have found a place there as well as surf-inspired art works and a collection of surfboards from down through the decades.

Kuta Lines surfing goods have gone global after small beginnings in the seventies when two surfing brothers from Newcastle visited Bali and were impressed by traditional Balinese textiles and asked for a few clothes to be made and then worn back here.  When other people asked about these it led to the start of the business which involved Balinese workers.
The work of Tony Brown and Kuta is recorded in the National Gallery in Canberra and describes how hooded 'Streaky' jumpers used fabric developed in Indonesia.  Traditional ikat weaving and dying techniques were adapted to create a fleecy, heavier weight fabric that would keep surfers warm on cold southern beaches. Streakies came in many colours and became something of a cult fashion item on and off the beach.
It is said that the art of traditional textiles, in Indonesia, is in decline because it is very labour intensive and time consuming and modern conventional textile workshops have taken over and Kuta fashions are still made there.

National Museum, Canberra.

Redhead Beach then south to Blacksmith Beach and Swansea heads.

Convicts came to our shores and became first settlers.  Banished for stealing a loaf of bread, we read.  A new wave of convicts as a solution for offenders in the riots is the answer. Bound for Botany Bay!

Enjoy surfing and have a break from  news of events that come in waves or relentlessly creep up on us. Angry people riot in the U.K.  They riot by social media.  Watch the latest struggles on CCTV.  Is that what all those cameras are for?  While probably not a doomsday fundamentalist, to me it seems that the brave new world has crept up on us and produces certain vibes.  It is not, by any means, the end of life as we know it.  Yet...

Riots are widespread and commonplace from the U.K., Paris (a few years ago), Greece, to the Middle East and beyond.

Thousands of refugees are in transit and beat at the doors of the well-off, without success.

Famine is gripping thousands of displaced families.

For all our higher education and the cyber age, global finances are beyond control.  Nations face bankrupcy. At least Australia has escaped that path.

Hardship?  The Mayor of London was overseas and the P.M. had to cut short a holiday in Italy.

Two examples of leaders who exemplify a bright new age, Obama or Gillard, are denied progress by those who just want to deprive them of success no matter what it costs the country, the economy or the environment. What is very promising in Australia is in struggle against negative forces that I thought we had seen the back of. 

Today's surf.

Stormy Newcastle Beach had plenty of white water on Saturday and a touch of sunlight for a brief time. 

Nobbys beach had a few bigger waves today.
Life guards and surfer in an incident. The surf board snapped in half.

Here is the board in two pieces.

That was enough! Blue flag was taken down and and replaced by red flag, dangerous surf, although there's no obvious information about what the colours indicate.

Skandi Bergen has a new sign on the bow: Customs and Border Control.
Red yes, but no bleeding heart!

May you live as long as you want and never want as long as you live.......a saying from the Irish pub, The Northern Star.

Below Bathers Way last week.

Bathers Way. Walk to Bar Beach and climb up the cliff walk

  

The Malibu Classic event is an amateurs competition for all ages and is big in May in Crescent Head which, I read, in surfing terms, has the best ever right-hand point break. The Malibu or longboard is wider than the shortboard and has a rounded nose. 

Board riders: past the Wicked camper, the Pandanus tree, over the rocks, the sand, and to the waves such as they were on that day.

The tree is probably a Pandanus (or Screw Palm) which, in more resourceful climes, is used for everything, for building, making sleeping mates mats, rain capes, canoe sails, bags etc.

The large fruit, round and about 20cm across consisting of nuts segments, is used for food, and the best choice depends on local knowledge, (like, check whether it is safe to eat), the flesh is used for soups and saucers sauces, or fruit is heated over a fire or in a stone oven, and juice is strained out from the seed by squeezing it between the hands.

Or can be smoked cured and kept for many months and stored in the ceiling for example. In traditional cultures, this food was important in tropical high altitudes where other crops did not do well.

Newcastle Beach

I'm not an Andre Rieu fan. He is doing another spectacular in Sydney and will be wowing the audiences. All the same, the style of the show would be an amazing experience.