Washed ashore

We're guessing that this will be a familiar sight this week; a container and its contents washed ashore this morning at Waihi Beach, north of Tauranga.




By way of a bit of local interest, we wonder if the bags of milk powder come from the Open Country milk powder plant in Wanganui, which exports container-loads of the product every day.

At least this load seems to be reasonably intact, and the clean-up should be straightforward, for this container anyway. But with a reported 300 containers having been lost overboard yesterday, there will be some in far worse shape.

Let's just be grateful that the salvors were able to pump all the oil out of Rena's bunkers before she broke in two, and whilst she lay stuck fast to the Astrolabe Reef. We have nothing but admiration for the efforts of the salvors in conditions that have often been far from pleasant.