On the rocks

Once upon a time stories of shipwrecks and vessels in trouble was confined to the pages of the history books, with pirates and castaways struggling through heavily romanticised fiction to a happy (usually) ending. Pilgrims to far off lands sometimes managed to safely set foot in new worlds, while for others, the only things that made it to shore were the snapped timbers of boats that didn't make it into safe harbours. New Zealand coasts have many stories to tell of ships that didn't make it across some of the infamous bars guarding our harbours. And people can understand how a storm can create tragedy for those on the high seas, such as the sinking of the Wahine.

But a calm sunny day on the east coast of New Zealand just out from some of most pristine beaches is a strange place for the latest maritime tragedy to unfold. However the unfolding disaster of the cargo ship Rena will place it near the top of what some in Aotearoa must be thinking of as our very own "Annus Horribilis".

To find out more about Shipwrecks in New Zealand visit the link for a subject search here.
To find out more about what the authorities can (or might) be doing to mitigate the effects of the current disaster, here are the results of a keyword search on oil pollution

And to investigate the effects of oil pollution on wildlife, try this recently released non-fiction title from the Gulf of Mexico explosion. The tarball chronicles : a journey beyond the oiled pelican and into the heart of the gulf oil spill / David Gessner tells a story that extends beyond the archetypal oil-soaked pelican, beyond politics, beyond BP. Instead he explores the ecosystem of the Gulf as a complicated whole and focuses on the people whose lives and livelihoods have been jeopardized by the spill. He reintroduces this oil spill as a template for so many man-made disasters and the long-term consequences they pose for ecosystems and communities.