Happy new year!

You might have been following what has been called our worst maritime disaster, the container ship MV Rena ran aground in October, resutling in oil slicks, damage to marine life debris washing up on beaches..

A couple of days ago the ship broke apart, and there were reports of containers washing up on Waihi Beach.  We were staying not far off so it was something to see.  See that pile up there ^ bits of wood, a sack of milk powder and sachets of instant rice, gross!  The sack of milk powder is covered in oil, on such a pristine beach, brought me to tears.  The scale of pollution was overwhelming.

The next day we were heading home so stopped off to see how things were going..  I was very impressed to see the clean up was thorough.  The thing is, I wanted to help, with two littlees in tow, it was not practical, nor did I have any gloves, or somewhere to put the stuff!  It went from this:

to this

and this

to this

Hard to believe it was so long ago now, and we are seeing wash up and pollution as far north as Waihi Beach, and dissapointing to hear that the ship is still leaking oil.

You might have heard about this recent marine disaster in New Zealand, a ship, Rena ran aground and has leaked oil in to our the waters on our beautiful east coast.

Most heart breaking is the toll it is taking on marine wildlife.

There are a number of volunteers helping in the clean up, and our government has been slow to act, disappointing, but not surprising.

On the up side, people have rallied from across New Zealand to support where they can and I was delighted to be able to give in a small way to provide support to people giving their time to help in the clean up.

There is a Facebook page, Rena-Fundraising-Auction you can visit, and you can look at the goodies up for auction on their trademe page…

Mermaid’s Purse has donated a Rock Star Pincushion and a Sea Horse Needle book…  Seeing as I love marine animals like these little babies, I figured some of you other cats might too!