Thursday, November 15

Whipped Ocean


I got this email yesterday, and while many of you may have already seen it, I thought it interesting enough to pass on.





Suddenly the shorelines north of Sydney were transformed into the Cappuccino Coast. Foam swallowed an entire beach and half the nearby buildings, including the local lifeguards' centre, in a freak display of nature at Yamba in New South Wales. One minute a group of teenage surfers were waiting to catch a wave, the next they were swallowed up in a giant bubble bath. The foam was so light that they could puff it out of their hands and watch it float away. Tom Woods, 12, emerges from the clouds of foam after deciding that surfing was not an option. It stretched for 30 miles out into the Pacific in a phenomenon not seen at the beach for more than three decades. Scientists explain that the foam is created by impurities in the ocean, such as salts, chemicals, dead plants, decomposed fish and excretions from seaweed. All are churned up together by powerful currents which cause the water to form bubbles. These bubbles stick to each other as they are carried below the surface by the current towards the shore. As a wa ve starts to form on the surface, the motion of the water causes the bubbles to swirl upwards and, massed together, they become foam. The foam "surfs" towards shore until the wave "crashes", tossing the foam into the air. The foam was so thick it came all the way up to the surf club. "It's the same effect you get when you whip up a milk shake in a blender," explains a marine expert. "The more powerful the swirl, the more foam you create on the surface and the lighter it becomes." In this case, storms off the New South Wales Coast and further north off Queensland had created a huge disturbance in the ocean, hitting a stretch of water where there was a particularly high amount of the substances which form into bubbles. As for 12-year-old beachgoer Tom Woods, who has been surfing since he was two, riding a wave was out of the question. "Me and my mates just spent the afternoon leaping about in that stuff," he said. "It was quite cool to touch and it was really weird. It was like clouds of air - you could hardly feel it."

24 comments:

Mamacita (The REAL one) said...

I don't think I would want to play in such anonymous suds. I need to know EXACTLY who was in there besides me.

Here from Michele's, but you know I come here daily.

I also use your same household feng shui, times three.

Anonymous said...

That's just bizarre!!!!!!!!!!

Dak-Ind said...

thats kind of cool, but i dont know if i would play in it after you told us what its made of!

michele sent me :)

Evil Twin's Wife said...

It looks like mashed potatoes. I don't think I'd be closer than a stick to poke it with... Really cool to see, though.

carmilevy said...

On the surface, it's a very cool, unique phenomenon. But deeper down, I wonder if it's another one of those signs that we've irrevocably damaged the planet, and she's simply taking the opportunity to let us know.

I wonder how many of them ended up with ear infections and other nasties after their immersion in the stuff. Ew!

(But cool pictures, nonetheless!)

Diane Mandy said...

Wow!!! I had not seen this. How amazing and icky all at the same time.

OldLady Of The Hills said...

I had seen this before but I had NOT read the details of what caused it and the things people said who were in it! It is really fantastic! Thanks for this incredibly unusual phenomenom...!

rosemary said...

I don't know how to swim...I am in that 2% of the population that are called sinkers.....just loooking at those pix scares me.

Blonde Goddess said...

Where's the gravy? Evil Twin's Wife, it does look like mashed potatoes!!!

Very cool pictures!!!

Shari said...

Cool. I wouldn't have thought that was possible to do that.

I wonder if you could walk on that? It's airy, like clouds, they say. Seriously, I wounder how deep the frothy stuff go before you hit water? Looks like piled up cotton.

Stopped in to say hello from Michele.

Beverly said...

I hadn't seen that picture before. Wow.

OldLady Of The Hills said...

Thanks for coming by Judy and your always encoyraging words.

And I had forgotten about LaLanne pulling that boat, but you are right about that...! And he was not young when he did that! Amazing! What is also Amazing is that both he and his wife are still going strong! That "JUICING" obviously really works! (lol)

Unknown said...

holy crap at first I thought it was snow.

Anonymous said...

Wow. It looks so cool and fun to play in until you read what causes it.

Michele sent me. HI!

Bobkat said...

That's amazing! I don't think I would want to play in it though now I have read what has made it - the word rotting cmae up far too much! Thanks for sharing it.

JeanMac said...

That's a first for me to see!

Anonymous said...

HOW AMAZING!!! Wow very cool never seen that before!

Pat said...

Amazing photos. There are some very strange and weird things happening. Where will it all end?
My toe nails are short as can be:)

Carli N. Wendell said...

That is so creepy. I hope those boys didn't get horribly ill afterwards.

joared said...

My first glance at that picture, reminded me of a cross country flight my husband and I made years ago when the clouds suddenly closed in under our small plane - looked just like that surf.

The other reaction I had was that the sea foam looked like a huge expanse of cotton. Quite incredible.

awareness said...

gee.........i'm glad i'm not alone in thinking that is creepy and a bit gross.... who knows what lurks in that foam?

Star said...

I'm not so sure I woulld have been jumping around in it!. Very cool to look at though.

Moon said...

WOW thats just freaky lol! Never seen or heard of such a thing..My first thought when I saw the pic was, some soap factory dumped a whole load of soap in the water by accident. Glad that its a natural phenominon...I would hve loved to play in that lol

ChAnduU said...

its really awesomem, wow!!!! superb i dont have words to tell.
i havent seen it but dis is cool, i liked it very much.gr8