Daylight saving; and another shark attack A few weeks ago the state Labor government was railroaded by big business interests into imposing daylight saving on the common populace. This was in spite of clear indications from the Western Australian public in several referenda in past years that they were quite happy with things as they were.
So today we commence the first day of the grand three year experiment in democracy. The clocks have been set forward an hour. What was 6am is now 7 am.
The government says that daylight saving will allow families so enjoy more leisure time together. What a load of old codswhahalop. Us parents are pretty well knackered at the end of the day and are rather pleased to see the kids tucked up in bed. Plenty of mothers are going to have to contend with getting the kids to sleep when it will still be daylight, or let them run rampant in the streets.
Another thing going against the time shift is that in mid-summer the school kids will released to go home at what generally as the hottest period of the day. A lot of parents have recognised this irksome fact. Roll on the state election.
Someone who wishes he had paused somewhere else for an hour yesterday is 15 year old South Australian surfer Zak Golebiowski. He was surfing the break at Wharton's Beach with his older brother and a friend. The beach is on the littoral of the heartland of white pointer territory, the Duke of Orleans Bay, east of Esperance. The maritime region is otherwise known at the Recherche Archipelago and contains about 60 uninhabited islands. Uninhabited, except by juicy seals, the white pointers' favourite fare. One of the big fish simply swam up and bit off one of young Zak's legs as an experiment. He's now in Royal Perth Hospital recovering, but with a limp and prospects of a lucrative TV contract.
According to the media, a posse led by the state fisheries department has been given a licence to kill. They are going to stop and question all white pointers in the area and ask them if they did it. If they give the wrong answer like, "A shark has gotta do what a shark has gotta do." then the fish will in for the chop.
Overlooking this bloody marine paradise is the spectacular Cape Arid national park. Duke of Orleans Bay is on the Western side of the cape. I was last there about twenty years ago on a camping trip with my family. Since then it has become a popular destination for grey nomads and surfers. Naturally enough, voracious sharks which sample any tourists at random are not considered good for business.
But the local businesses shouldn't worry too much. Surfers quickly shrug off these sort of incidents, and would have been back in the water today if the beach hadn't been closed. As for the grey nomads, they will be content to stay on the beach, poised with their cameras in the hope of being in the right place at the right time. The shark will possibly be patrolling westward along the coast to eventually be off Fremantle in three weeks or so.
The Recherche Archipelago has a rich 19th century maritime history which I wrote about in my PhD dissertation
Maritime resource exploitation in southwest Australia prior to 1901. I have a mind to include some chapter excerpts on
Fremantlebiz.© MMVI Paul R. Weaver.
About the writerCheck out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a couple of million words.
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