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Monday, January 5, 2009

Coogee morning for Merc

14 comments:

Unknown said...

So cool, I love the 4 golden stellae.

Unknown said...

It's not that I've stopped following your blog, it's just easier to Live Bookmark it...

Fresh Local said...

merc I don't know what following and Live Bookmark mean

the stellae only look like that with the right combination of wave and sun

Coogee is a wondrous place - the banality of Sydney's obsession with waterfront property, the wildness of the cliffs, the attempts to control the sea with concrete pools, the pre-dawn sand-cleaning, the metal detectors, the boot camps, the surf boats, the lizard men with their daily swim, the drunk backpackers asleep with their faces crushed into the sand - the place screams Straya! Straya! Straya! - and the rock and the sea answer with older stronger chanting - stay calm, little people, we endure, surrender to the sky your hearts of anger

that pathway into the rising sun now always makes me think of you and D

Unknown said...

Live bookmark is like an RSS feeder. Your Coogee description is great. Neruda does the sea,

6. Ode to the sea

Here surrounding the island,
There΄s sea.
But what sea?
It΄s always overflowing.
Says yes,
Then no,
Then no again,
And no,
Says yes
In blue
In sea spray
Raging,
Says no
And no again.
It can΄t be still.
It stammers
My name is sea.

It slaps the rocks
And when they aren΄t convinced,
Strokes them
And soaks them
And smothers them with kisses.

With seven green tongues
Of seven green dogs
Or seven green tigers
Or seven green seas,
Beating its chest,
Stammering its name,

Oh Sea,
This is your name.
Oh comrade ocean,
Don΄t waste time
Or water
Getting so upset
Help us instead.
We are meager fishermen,
Men from the shore
Who are hungry and cold
And you΄re our foe.
Don΄t beat so hard,
Don΄t shout so loud,
Open your green coffers,
Place gifts of silver in our hands.
Give us this day our daily fish.

From Il Postino movie soundtrack. Me and D's fav film. It is so cool that the pathway to the rising Sun reminds you of us.
I reckon you could poet.

Fresh Local said...

merc can I please post your lessons for approaching the sea here?

Unknown said...

Absolutee post away.
Further to your latest post, I was thinking how much my life is determined by the wind and the tides.
I haz poems on it.

Fresh Local said...

I've posted your lessons. Please let me know if they should be amended.

A family friend who has swam at Balmoral beach for seventy years stepped on a stingray a few weeks ago. The wound was treated but when it wouldn't heal he was admitted to hospital and put on IV antibiotics.

I saw several rays early in the morning at Lovett Bay, grey square shapes gliding slowly along.

Unknown said...

The list looks great. I have seen Orca feeding on Stingrays in the shallows. Orca love them like chips apparently.
Myth lore, fish and chip shops used to cut roundels out of Ray wings and sell them as calamari rings.
Stingrays are of the shark family, though the barb can be serrated (I used to have one)the cut is very painful and may hold some sort of necrotic poison in some species.
Rays are very timid and easily avoidable...I remember wading through the estuary at Okiwi on Gt. Barrier Island to surf the outer point, and seeing myriad Rays moving out of my way, a guard path of Rays.
Surfing the point, seeing shark packs is common. We used to land by small plane, surf and fly out.

Fresh Local said...

There is an Australia surfer/scientist who specialises in rips and publishes and advises on identifying them.

This weekend the Bethells surf took another person. Strangely someone who had advised family against going into the sea.

Over many years we never swam there, only going into a large rock pool at the southern end of O'Neill's or the lagoon where the river hugs the cliffs near the carpark. The lagoon usually had quicksand as one of its banks.

Unknown said...

We know it as The Death Coast.

Fresh Local said...

On the telly here we see a Piha Rescue programme. It always looks wild and many of the rescued silly in a variety of ways.

Unknown said...

I have surfed over 35 years, many oceans, many seas, reefs, outer reefs.
I don't swim (without board) past the second banks on The Death Coast.
The one time I lost my board (legrope snapped) on nightfall, way out the back and heading at speed for Oz, I remembered the girl diver who floated out there for 18 hours overnight waiting to be rescued.

Fresh Local said...

The last time I stayed on Erangi Point, part of a welcome home tour with my French brother after two years in London, we'd watch the surfers arrive and depart on O'Neill's

No helicopters or ambulances appeared during our few days there. Just lots of takeaway wrappers and empty bottles.

Unknown said...

They were surfers but they weren't. I don't even take shellfish anymore.
The guy who drowned last week, his people left lots of rubbish apparently.