deep

‘New friend’ hit by plastic menace of the deep

I was interested and disturbed to read your item “Plastic menace lurks in the deep” (“Pacific Report,” Mar., p 8).

I had no idea the threat to marine animal and bird life from our discarded plastic waste had reached such prop ortions.

It was only a day or so after I had been enlightened by this valuable item that I came across corroboration of it in another place altogether.

In one of my son’s surfing magazines the Queensland based Line-Up I read a story called “New Friend” by Lawrie Kavanagh.

Kavanagh wrote: “If it wasn’t for the hike in petrol and the halt in wages . . .

“If it wasn’t for airliners being shot out of the sky and lonely, lost bodies being turned over for political points scoring ... if it wasn’t for assassinations and murders and robberies and un employment and inflation and recessions and atomic bombs

and washing up, I’d probably be a happy man today.

“You see, I met a new friend in the surf last week, a dolphin, and that made me feel good . . .

“There followed 45 minutes of brilliance, with my new friend catching wave after wave, sometimes surfing so close you feared the fin may hit him.

“Most times when the new friend returned to the line-up out back he rocketed high over the incoming swells and break ers, sometimes twisting in the air and occasionally showing off.

“Between waves the dolphin swam about, sometimes on his back, and once, shortly before he went home, turned on his back with his head and flippers out of the water as if sunba thing.

“It was only on his last jump high over a breaking wave that I noticed the short piece of heavy nylon fishing line hanging from my new friend’s mouth.

“If it wasn’t for atomic bombs, rising prices and new friends with nylon fishing line dangling from their mouths, I’d probably be a happy man to day ...”

Arthur Blackstock

Aireys Inlet, Vic., Australia.

During his 1956-70 tenure as Bishop of Noumea, Monsignor Pierre Martin is seen here ordaining two young Melanesians into the priesthood. The ceremony took place at Paita Seminary. On another occasion at Hienghene, Bishop Martin ordained present day FLNKS leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou.