I just finished reading the barnburner of a thread regarding the tragic oil spill in the gulf…
Having spent a touch of time on the panhandle with a dear southern uncle of mine, I’ve developed a fondness for the area. I thought it might be refreshing to celebrate the cultural and natural beauty of the area, particularly it’s surfing both contemporary and historic. So, indulge me with a few shots of white sugar beaches, turquoise water, seafood trawlers and so forth.
Thanks!
West Coast of FL. Don’t know the name of the photog, but would love to give credit.
That gulf is a very unique place. All the spring water that comes out of the SE that finds it’s way to those sugar white beaches. The dunes and crystal waters … it has it’s very own feel … smell … I could be blindfolded and left on a beach there and would know right off what body of water i was looking at. Lives are being destroyed … this is such a tragedy … The whole system is nearly closed too. The whole thing will end up ruined for at least a generation. BP can not make up for this one. As surfers we’ve lost something special too. Turn to the sun folks … it only costs money.
Here’s an image I shot during Hurricane Rita in Texas. At just about the peak of the swell, this huge tanker headed out to sea right past the break. It was bobbing up and down riding up the swells. It was quite a site.
Worse than Valdez … worse than Chernobyl … worst man made disaster of our lifetime. Drill baby drill???
“BP… Worse than Chernobyl.” Kind of has a ring to it. So sad, (better to laugh than to cry).
sickdog
I'm not saying the oil spill isn't a disaster, but I have to disagree that the spill is worse than Chernobyl. I don't think we'll have babies developing luekemia from this or failed crops and contaminated farm animals. We survived the Ixtoc 1 spill back in the late 70's which was tallied at about 3 million barrels (120+ million gallons) of crude spilled. Ixtoc polluted Mexico's Bay of Campeche all the way up to the S. Texas coastline for a summer. It then sank and "went away" when it got cold, only to come back every spring through fall for several years. There was a lot of messed up shoreline, but not something that nature wasn't able to bounce back from. Way too much short term fish and shorebird kills, but no one died from the spilled oil.
Hopefully, the BP spill gets completely contained soon. As long as it doesn't happen again, and given the administration's response to the event, it's likely no new drilling will be going on for some time, the area should be able to fully recover. It sucks bad right now, but hopefully, the worst will be over in the coming months and in a few years it'll just be a bad memory with only nuisance tar balls to remind those affected of the incident.
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Worse than Valdez ... worse than Chernobyl ..... worst man made disaster of our lifetime. Drill baby drill???
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I'm still too shocked to really do much more thinking on it. All I can say, is there is some magic that was in the Gulf from time to time. We have a few folks from here who could hang in Hawaii back in the day from BZR Turner and Mark Foo to Ken Bradshaw. Some of the deltas and surrounding parks were beauty and magic to behold and it's likely all gone. I just can't find anything positive to think about this or the future of it.
My take is whose next.
can I get a little help here?
http://www.easternsurf.com/ISSUES/ESM_ISSUE_144/index.html
It's a bitter irony that this ''gulf coast photo issue'' of ESM came out about 48 hours before the disaster began.
12 rigs got approved this week alone…BP won’t tell the truth…The gov is looking spineless…The gulf fishery is wrecked for decades or more (Do you like shrimp that doesn’t involve killing sea turtles? You’ll miss it, I guess)…Meanwhile, we’ll have yet another reason to stay in the middle east as
pressure against domestic oil production mounts…Yeah, no one is being directly killed by this, but economies will suffer and the long term collateral damage may be far greater than Chernobyl. Sounds shallow in contrast, but luckily there is a south swell brewing here on the west coast…
Thank you Greg and others. I hope to see more shots to celebrate what was, and hopefully to look forward to what will be when all of this madness is through.
Panhandle
Panhandle
Just a few pic’s I’ve taken over the last year with my point and shoot.
Where did you take those? Looks like Mexico bch in the old days.
