Sunday 27 May 2018

baywatch

Just in time for the start of the summer vacation season of the northern hemisphere, we’re given a timely reminder via Strange Company that drowning does not look like drowning.
For a host of physiological reasons, a panicked person in the water will be unable to flail about their arms or bellow for help—as seen dramatized on movies and television, and recognising a swimmer in distress is not obvious for someone who is not a trained lifeguard or sailor. Just being aware of the fact that drowning can happen quietly is powerful.  Do take a moment to read the short but potentially life-saving article at the link above.

Tuesday 17 April 2018

pet project or message in a bottle

Via Slashdot, we learn that building on the 2016 discovery of a strain of bacteria in a dump in Japan that ate plastic, a group of researchers at the University of Portsmouth accidentally prodded the catalyst that allows the bacteria to breakdown and metabolise PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic into overdrive.
Curious to understand the evolutionary mechanism that selected for such appetites in the first place, scientists altered the enzyme inadvertently whilst taking it apart. Though further trials are needed, researchers are confident that the process is scalable and could be a tool (this is a big problem whose solutions take a concerted effort and shifts in behaviours, as well) in combating the problem of plastic waste in the oceans.

Friday 6 April 2018

neap tide

Though perhaps only a cold comfort and little consolation to imagine how the same cadre that benefit for the present from these regulatory changes are also the ones who are behind the policies that contribute to global warming and sea-level rise and their ocean-front properties will be soon conquered by the waters, the state of Florida has enacted legislation that could potentially severely curtail public access to state-controlled beaches.
A seemingly innocuous change in wording that extends the property-rights boundary out a bit caught only by the fact that the bill contained a rider prohibiting municipalities from passing legislation to countermand state law will give hoteliers and other land owners greater power to control who trods over private holdings to reach what the wealthy cannot yet own outright. Despite the governor’s exuberance and confidence that the landed-gentry won’t abuse this gift and deny people egress, many mayors have protested that such a move will destroy the state’s tourism industry, tossing favour to only a few establishments catering to a particular clientele.

Friday 18 November 2016

time and tide

Via Colossal, we are treated to wonderful, modern and almost brutalist at times sandcastles of sculptor Calvin Seibert. Spending part of the summer beachcombing at Rockaway in New York, Seibert reflected on the nature of his temporary edifices and how their construction is a race against time that defies advanced planning and develops rather organically. Explore more of Seibert’s amazing geometric sculptures at the link above.

Saturday 16 July 2016

hรผhnergott

We discovered on the Atlantic stretch of beach leading to the lighthouse (Phare) of Chassiron on the northernmost tip of the รŽle d’Olรฉron thousands of stone piles (cรกirn).  It was a really arresting and surprising composition, like a landscape from the imagination of Anton Gaudรญ.  The collected and arranged stones were obliviously bleached and hewn by the sea, pock-marked and made me think of the received folk-belief of the Hรผhnergotten (equivalent to the Celtic idea of the Adders’ Stone) that a rock with a naturally (or preternaturally) bored hole is a lucky charm—presumably because it can be strung through easily and worn as an amulet.  Not all of these stones could have been eroded by time and tide to specifications like this one I spied but left on the beach to achieve a perfect poultry-form (I realise that hรผhn has nothing to do with chicken but it is an association that gets reinforced like Sparkasse as Cheese Bank) as I think that would have been too magical.  I knew, however, that each stone was tending in that direction at least as we stacked and balanced ours along the beach as well before proceeding to the lighthouse and latter day ensemble at the promontory.

Thursday 30 June 2016

bathing beauties or adult-swim

From around the mid-eighteenth century through the Victoria Era, females wanting to take the sea air and enjoy a day at the beach were wheeled out past the maddening crowd of potentially gawking and leering males in personal stage-coaches, as Presurfer informs.
Etiquette and modesty (though these rules were recent impositions and far different from the practise of mixed skinny-dipping) dictated dictated that women bathers would enter a mobile changing booth, “bathing machines,” in formal street garb and disrobe, doffing her dress in for an equally concealing swim-suit and in the shallows, be allowed to frolic on a tether or at the strong hand of attendant. After this experience, the swimmer would be escorted back, drying off and donning her street clothes again for the sake of decorum. Maybe this production is less showy and less inclusive than a burkini.

Thursday 10 October 2013

aus dessus des vieux volcans or le grand bleu


PfRC will be taking a much needed sabbatical soon. In the meantime, please stay-tuned to our little travel blog for continued adventures. Same cheesy time, same cheesy station. Fromage, fromage.