Dales With Matt

Arthur snaps some night shots of the phosphate loading.  The object on the beach in the foreground is part of the mooring that broke contributing to the ship crash.

Christmas Island Disaster

It's been over a month since the MV Tycoon, a cargo ship used to haul phosphate mined from Christmas Island crashed in the cove. Normally not allowed to load during rough weather, it continued to stay in port, broke a mooring, and didn't have enough power to make it through the rough waves and was pinned against the rocks. Crew members jumped into the rough water and were picked up by a Navy rescue crew; all made it off safely.  Bad weather continued to slam the boat against the rocks, eventually breaking it in two and releasing its diesel and oil into our cove. A few days later a clean-up crew was flown in from the mainland with the proper safety equipment, and a big volunteer community turnout hauled out debris and cleaned up the shoreline.  Problems in determining who owns and insures the boat (as it's registered in Panama, supposedly to dodge this exact circumstance) meant no salvage crew was hired to remove the boat from our cove and only functioning port.  Two weeks later another storm hits, breaking the boat in three pieces, and causing more fuel to spill, essentially undoing all previous clean up efforts.  More community meetings reveal the government is now responsible to step in and organize the salvage efforts, as the owners of the boat have taken no action.  Two days ago, the Christmas Island Phopshates started loading phosphate again.  This evening, Arthur went on sunset photo shoot in the cove, right as the conveyor belts loading the phosphate jammed, causing the load to spill directly in the ocean. You can still see the busted ship on the right.

Baby Turtles!

For about 15 minutes at Greta Beach this afternoon, a nest of (I think, Green) turtle hatchings emerged and propelled themselves into the ocean.  Out of seemingly nowhere waves of these little guys pushed their way through footprints and around driftwood to make it to the water.  Absolutely incredible!