Lost Permanent Unloced Swordfish When Prestiged Again

We are constantly reminded that our oil-based consumer society, with our excessive utilise of plastics, obsession with air travel and inefficient ways of heating and lighting our homes, will eventually lead to ecology suicide in the grade of global warming and resources depletion. Simply for many people, including surfers, global warming and resource depletion are a fiddling difficult to grasp; because they are hard to actually see happening. However, our addiction to oil is ane of the ultimate causes of another, much more tangible effect: when oil that is being transported spills into the sea and arrives on the coastline.

Near exactly ten years ago, the Prestige oil spill occurred off the coast of Galicia, in Espana, very shut to where I live at the moment. It was the worst ecology ending in the history of Spain and Europe, and I don't call up it should be forgotten. So I apologize in accelerate if you find this article a little gloomy.

Galicia is a province in the far northwest of Spain. Some say it is the forgotten corner of the Iberian Peninsula, the terminal outpost before the Atlantic Body of water. The granite topography, constant pelting and year-round common cold h2o give the place a harsh dazzler and ensure its beaches and waves will never be overcrowded. A wide swell-window and countless spots facing all directions hateful that the surf here is consequent and of high quality. Autonomously from around the more populated city areas, you might find yourself looking for someone to surf with, fifty-fifty in summer. Most surfers still prefer the easy access, warm water and reliable weather of France or Portugal.

In the far northwest reaches of Galicia lies La Costa da Morte. This boggling stretch of unspoilt coastline is blest with empty white-sand beaches, crystal-make clean water and one of the highest yearly boilerplate wave heights in the N Atlantic.

The people of the Costa da Morte are every bit hardy as the granite rock that permeates every headland. Many of them are percebeiros, collectors of percebes or goose barnacles. This involves clinging onto the rocks in all weather and wave weather, painstakingly picking off the shellfish, 1 by ane. About 5 g families alive exclusively from the sale of percebes that they have collected themselves. Yous could say that, compared with almost jobs in mod society, being a percebeiro is maybe a picayune more sustainable and more in balance with Nature.

Tony at Meñakoz, earlier the arrival of the Blackness Tide. Photograph: Jakue Andikoetxea

Until June 2003, all fishing was banned along Spain's Atlantic coast. Hundreds of fishing boats were converted into oil-collecting vessels, the fishermen themselves scooping upward the slicks with giant spatulas. The oil was carried back to shore aboard the boats in green dustbins. This method was acknowledged as much more efficient than letting it get in on the beaches commencement, so painstakingly having to clean nigh every grain of sediment. None of the research into high-technology oil-spill recovery methods that must take been washed (?) over the xiv years since the Exxon Valdez oil spill was made good employ of in Spain.

At first, people were unsure near whether to go surfing or not. Many decided it just wasn't worth it, what with the unknown risk of the contagion, in addition to the cold water. From January to March 2003 – meridian winter flavor in Europe – line-ups were empty. In France, the authorities even decided to mitt out fines to those attempting to go surfing. Even during winter 2003-2004, more a year after it happened, I remember paddling out at a beach near a m kilometers from where it happened, and coming out covered in stinking dark-brown-black stains. The listing goes on.

———————————–

Within the remoteness of the Costa da Morte, lies the even more remote fishing hamlet of Camelle. A few meters from the water's edge at Camelle are the remains of a tiny hut, in which lived the beginning human victim of the Black Tide of the Prestige. Amid the many hundreds of thousands of birds and mammals that needlessly perished, about people agree that Manfred Gnädinger died as a straight event of the Prestige. He was murdered by the people responsible.

Manfred was known to everyone in the hamlet simply as 'Man' or El Alemán (the German). He arrived in Camelle one day in 1962, from Dresden, Germany. Nobody was certain why he came. They knew he was a well-educated man, always polite and courteous, just they knew little more. Many people believe he came to Galicia disillusioned with the western world. Whatever the case, after staying in Camelle for a short while, he decided to opt for a unlike kind of life. Man spent the next 40 years living alone in that small hut, just a few metres from the raging Atlantic Ocean.

Man lived a simple life: no car, television or mortgage, no telephone, no stress. He created an open-air art gallery, full of stone sculptures reminiscent of, possibly, Gaudí. The gallery was his pride and joy, his very livelihood. The pocket-size income he needed to survive was fatigued from the 100 pesetas [nearly $1] each tourist was asked for the privilege of browsing his works of art. He was a kind, gentle person who caused no hassle to anybody. He wanted fiddling out of life, except to exist immune to continue with his artwork. His minor lifestyle was non detrimental to his wellness – he could exist spotted swimming great distances in the frigid Galician waters, even into his early sixties.

On 18th Nov 2002, Manfred woke upwards to the stench of crude oil. His precious art gallery, yesterday a beautiful garden of multi-coloured sculptures, was now a thick mess of black tar. There was no hope of recovering it; the oil from the Prestige had penetrated deep into his life'south piece of work, into his dwelling house and into his soul. On 28th December 2002, just over a month after, Manfred was dead.

"Morreu de melancolía", say the locals. He died of sadness, lost hope, a cleaved heart. After the blackness tide of the Prestige, he merely gave up the volition to live. He may have already been sick, nobody really knows, just what is clear is that the Prestige finished him off.

Man was an integral part of the Costa da Morte, a land where many people still live in equilibrium with Nature and are non destroying their own resource base. The earth of greed and excess has always been snapping at the heels of Galicia only has inappreciably managed to accept a concord, perchance due to the harsh surroundings. Throughout twoscore years, Human being had escaped the modern earth with its gluttony and overindulgence, the earth he had left behind in 1962. When it burst through his front door and trampled all over him, he must have thought information technology had been chasing him the unabridged time.

[Photo: José Manuel Casal]

Many people may take thought Man was primitive because he didn't ain a Idiot box or a washing car, didn't drive around in a car, and didn't fly one-half way effectually the world every calendar week to talk to about money. However, his relinquishment of the trappings of modern gild possibly put him on a slightly higher plane than most of the states. He managed to avoid not just vanity, greed and materialism, but also aggressiveness, territorialism and xenophobia: traits all also prevalent among then-called sophisticated people.

The death of Manfred is not just another unfortunate incident to be forgotten. It is highly symbolic. Manred and the Costa da Morte are the antithesis of the Prestige and all it stands for.

meyersbrestiong1961.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.patagonia.com/stories/black-tide/story-18250.html

Share this post