Hamarana

However…

At least she is now pointing in a different direction, even if she is disgorging oil everywhere on both sides of the ship. I can’t help wondering why they did not put oil booms in the water before the refloat attempts, just in case.

Don’t much like how this is proceeding.

[edit: 6.48am] Looking at the webcam… Doesnt look like the booms were deployed. Might be that its just still too dark to see them, but what I saw on the news last night was bright orange… should be visible now…

Alas there will be no photographs. A one kilometre exclusion zone has been set up not only by sea and air, but also on land. There will not even be any pedestrian access… only residents living within the zone will be able to enter the area.

I expect a chosen few commercial and ABC news teams will be permitted to set up cameras to film whatever is going to happen. The rest of us will have to wait until later tonight to find out how it all went. There’s a high tide mid evening and thats when they are going to attempt to get her off the beach. I don’t much like their chances of doing it without damage, they are going to be dragging her over a reef no matter which direction they choose to pull from.

Fingers crossed. The exclusion zone has been set up from 6a.m. AEST, an hour ago as I type this, so no more shots from me for a while unless at some point in the future they give up and just carve her up right there on the beach.

Dear heavens… what’s the world coming to? Tony Blair, just resigned as Britain’s PM, the man who jumped at the chance to send British troops to Iraq, the guy who supported George Bush all the way, the Brit warmonger…. appointed as a Middle East Peacemaker.

He will work towards a Middle East peace settlement on behalf of the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations.

Read about it here

Let me see now…

1. Problems of child abuse, alcohol abuse, poor health access etc etc have existed in Aboriginal communities in this country for… forever…

2. Our Prime Minister, John Howard, has in the last couple of weeks decided to do something about it. So what he’s going to do (has already begun) is to send Federal Police and army into communities in the Northern Territory… to discuss things… of course…

3. A few weeks ago the issue of whether we would have nuclear power in this country came to a bit of a head, and the Liberal government has decided that we are definitely going to head in this direction…

4. We have a HUGE supply of uranium… available through mines located where? (You guessed it!) in the Northern Territory, where the land owners are Aboriginal.

I wonder how much of his sudden decision is based on that, on the perceived need to get moving on nuclear power, and on the desperate need for another “children overboard” episode to fight off what right now seems like an inevitable defeat at the next election.

The plight of the communities and an intelligent summation of the situation can be found in The Age, in the article “Please Listen to us, PM”. Thanks to Minx, an Australian Opinion member/mod, for that link.

I went into town for a reason other than going to Nobbys. I failed at that, and so I wandered down to Nobbys anyway. It was early enough for me to be able to park within a reasonable distance on the top road under Fort Scratchley, which, to me, seems to be the best vantage point, although not the closest.

Today, there is a rather large tug attached to the Pasha Bulker by long lines. I am assuming its the tug which brought, and is to lay (if it has not already) a couple of massive anchors wtih which they hope the PB will be able to winch itself off the beach. I don’t know squat about these kinds of things but it seems to me, flat bottom or no, trying to use two anchors to drag 40,000 tons sideways might be a bit of overblown ambition.

It will definitely be an interesting few days.

A link from Whirlpool this morning rendered this piece of information from Wikipedia:

Cherry Venture was wrecked due to a combination of severe storms and a lack of cargo. The unladen ship sat high in the water, which when combined with the high tides and strong swell propelled it to a point far enough up the sand that it could not be successfully re-floated, despite attempts that involved dredging the beach.

Cherry Venture: 1,600 tons – stayed stuck on the beach for 34 years
Pasha Bulker: 40,000 tons – ?

Well, the technology is more advanced now. Maybe they’ll shift it…

You wouldn’t think it would happen, but it did. First, the bulk carrier (coal, not oil as I had been told on Friday at lunch) washing up on Nobby’s, Second, the HIDEOUS storms which began earlier that same day and flooded various places around town got even worse later that afternoon and overnight, and now, the Hunter river is flooding to an extent that it hasn’t in something like 52 years.

Oh yeah, and I was without power and heating for 24 hours, but I wasn’t nearly as badly off as some who had no water either, and had neither from Friday afternoon, as well as getting flooded.

I took this shot some months ago, from the river’s edge at Stockton which is across from Nobby’s beach (on the other side of the roadway in this pic and not visible) and Horseshoe beach (visible in the pic). I am posting it here now, to give some impression of the sheer size of the ship which is beached, and which I took a photo of this morning, from almost the same spot.

The photos posted the other day were of the ship in a different position, and it seemed to be further out than it currently is. According to radio reports, it’s about 30 metres offshore and its bow is firmly on sand, but its screws are still in water. Apparently they have got the power back on the boat and have tested at least one of the engines which is working okay.

Whether they ever get it off the beach though, is anyone’s guess.

If you want to know whats happening, you need to access the ABC Newcastle website where there is ongoing information available. The station has been doing an amazing job, they have been working 24/24 to keep people updated, putting most of their regular programs on hold during the emergency… fabulous effort. On that page you’ll also find some radio streams… recommended to listen if you aren’t in the usual listening area to pick up AM 1233 or FM 95.7

Post is a bit of a mishmash, but I’m off to do some email and forum catchup now.