There was huge excitement on the beach at Papamoa today. A huge whale (named Nobbie, for some reason) was washed up and stranded on the beach. Loads of people rushed to help it. I've never seen one of these creatures so close up and he was HUGE! The only beached whales I've ever seen are the 2 legged variety, usually pink and on the Mediterranean beach.
Anyway, Nobbie was desperately trying to breathe and volunteers were trying to keep him wet with buckets of sea water. Someone dashed off and brought some blankets and quilt covers to protect him from drying out and he looked very smart in the blue flowery one you can see in the photo. A digger was called in and dug out a trench ready for the tide to turn and take him back out to sea. Apparently he was chasing a sting ray and got stuck on a sand bank as the tide was going out. It was a thrill to see him swim off again safe and sound and probably not too badly affected by his ordeal. But as I've said so many times before, its events like this that give me more reason to keep out of the sea.
2 comments:
I'm with you on staying out of the water... you never know what lies under the water's surface, and I for one am not too excited to find out as it drags me down and eats me.
plus, who needs to go into the ocean when the creatures are going to come out to you.
good to hear he got back ok. unfortunately he still has to live with that name.
In the paper last week a unidentified white block of substance was washed up on the beach here. "Nature" people got all excited and were were saying it was a deposit from a sperm whale and should be annalysed (euwww) but it turns out it was a conjealed lump of vegetable fat from a drain (double euwww). Either way, these are another 2 good reasons to keep out of the sea!
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