Sunday, May 02, 2010

epic swimming conditions + where does our broken gear go?

The lack of wind and an extreme morning low tide has made for some epic swimming conditions the last couple of days.

I swam to the reef at Lowers to check out how many broken masts/booms were laying on the bottom. I did find a few.




But really not that many actually. And it seemed that somehow they didn't do too much damage on a reef that looked kind of dead already. I'm sure some creatures found a new home in them.

The reef at lowers it's like the wave that breaks on it: soft, mellow, not sharp at all, pretty uniformly shaped. But please try not to stand on it if you fall there. Also because, although extremely rare and well hidden in holes, there's a few sea urchins here and there.


I was wondering where all the broken stuff goes and I found a partial answer when swimming along the beach... 10 yards from it! Unfortunately, the battery died before I could document it, this is the last photo I took. It shows three pieces of masts and there's five more just above them. Plenty more gear all along the shore.
The current must move the stuff a lot and I guess most of it is probably somewhere downwind.


I'd like to invite all sailors not to ditch gear in the water unless it's strictly necessary.
I'd also like to invite golfers not to practice their driving shots on the beach... I saw HUNDREDS of golf balls!

Looking good with a snorkeling mask has never been as easy task.


I'd like to thank all blog readers: April was a great month with 37,801 unique visitors.


I would also like to thank a new blog sponsor (timesharerelief.com) who bought a couple of text links. Not exactly sure how it works, but having a text link on a highly accessed blog helps the ranking of your website in the search engines.

Just a quick reminder of the prices.
Current prices for a banner: $50/month, or $45/month if you order 3 to 5 months upfront, or $40/month if you order 6 months or more upfront.
Current prices for a one line text link: $25/month or $20/month if you order 6 months or more upfront.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey GP... they do beach clean ups... on a flat glassy clear day we should do a "reef clean up" day and pick up all the gear under... It's funny - some guy was snorkeling at Ho'okipa yesterday and found tons of stuff as well. Ciao - Alex

cammar said...

Totally.

I can't walk without crutches yet, so I couldn't pick up anything. As soon as I can, I'll go back out there and pick up some. But I'll start from those damn golf balls that seemed more harmful to me... they totally look like eggs.

Anonymous said...

Yes, there are cleanups, which would explain the lack of gear on the bottom. I actually read an article in one of the surfing mags last year (can't remember if it was Surfer or Surfing), but they actually called out windsurfers to come to the beach cleanup, as a lot of the stuff they found was broken windsurf gear.

James

Wind obsessor said...

My buddy Clem used to work for HSM in the 80's/90's and he had to ditch a Hotsail after breakng a mast. It was found 6 months later by a driver who gave it Jeff who theb sent back to Clem here in Guernsey - it was still in perfect condition (except for a luff tube rip) save for a few extra creases!