"I'm a bit of an idiot..."
Now, to be quite fair, I don’t know if Wurtulla Beach, just south of Julian Wilson’s Coolum, is actually famed. Surf-Forecast.com describes it as “an exposed beach break that has fairly consistent surf” that offers lefts and rights and also shares that it can get crowded, which means it is at least well-known. It almost became better known as the site of a World War II bombing 81 years after the Japanese formally surrendered.
So there Sean Mackney and a lady friend were waltzing, just before midnight, when she discovered something odd sticking out of the base of a sand dune.
“She yelled out to me and she thought that she’d found a bomb and I was like, ‘What?'” Mackney shared with Australia’s Broadcasting Corporation.
Being Australian, and a man, he marched over and picked the thing up.
“I’m a bit of an idiot … I was shitting myself,” he continued, adding, “I didn’t really know what to do … we called the police and they were down there pretty quick. I’m surprised nobody else had seen it and [wonder] how long it was exposed.”
The police, ever fast, raced down and confirmed the thing was “a 25-pound High Explosive projectile (25 Pounder) from World War II.”
The Defense Bomb Squad was called in and blew it up, right there on the sand, at 4 am, waking the neighbors.
Local Rhiannon McPherson, who lives nearby, declared, “I thought maybe a bad car accident or something … it sounded like something really big had dropped onto cement.”
Two questions for you:
What is the most dangerous thing you have ever found on the beach?
What is the biggest thing you have dropped onto cement?
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Still not saying about I said?!!!
In small-kine little-kid days we lived in Okinawa – there was war debris everywhere, just lying around as it was only twenty-something years since the end of the ferocious fighting for the island and there had never been an organised cleanup.
No doubt there were (and still are) unexploded ordnance on Okinawa. We collected brass .50 caliber machine gun shells by the thousands, they had no value for trading other than an add-on.
Ammo boxes, rusty bayonets and dog tags had value, but human body parts were the most valuable – femurs and shinbones were common to find in the dirt and jawbones were the best and had the highest trading value, especially with teeth.
If the teeth were good, the jawbone was likely from a dead American Marine – Japanese jawbones had bad teeth.
Rather macabre hobby for little kids, but everyone in our neighbourhood near Kadena had a big collection.
I found a WW2 hand grenade.
Back in primary school ( about 12 years old) , we were playing school cricket at a local oval. The ball went over a neighbour’s fence and I jumped over to grab it. I found a hand grenade laying in the long grass of the unkempt yard and brought it back to the field wth me. On the way back to school, myself and the other kids were checking it out. None of us were exactly respectful of the item but I recall one particularly dumb kid trying to pull the pin but it was rusted shut.
When I got home I showed my mum. She shit herself and called the cops. They arrived and gave it to the army who blew it up. It was in the local paper.
Decades later i told this story to my wife whom I didn’t know at the time of the event. She told me she’d heard the story already from her cousin who was the bomb disposal expert in the army charged with destroying the hand grenade back in the day. He went on to be a contracted bomb disposal tech in Iraq where he was later killed on the job of disposing another explosive device.
Bombs are bad…..Mmmmmkkk.
In other news: Water Is coldest it’s been all year around here. Green and high salinity. Four shark incidents in the last six days amongst a group of about 30 local surfers. Feet up, ladies and gents!
The most dangerous thing you will find on the beach is Strayan Cunt post surf vigorously typing on his motorola flip phone trying to max out allowable comments per article.
I thought you might say he does something else vigorously so I’m pleased that isn’t the case.
One hand strokes the other etc..
Two possibilities for dangerous things on the beach:
Item two seems like a typical BG poster.
A Wavestorm with a surfer attached to it
What is the most dangerous thing you have ever found on the beach?
An x girlfriend What is the biggest thing you have dropped onto cement?
An x girlfriend.
Reminds me of my favorite Australian movie… The Square.
Wow just read the wiki on it. Never heard of it til now. Thanks man I’ll have a look!
I had meant to watch it when I saw an interview with the actor who can imitate an ape. A unique talent, and he’s gotten a lot of roles in huge movies as a result.
thanks for the reminder. Added to the list. Not sure if I knew that it won the Palm d’Ore.
Blue is the Warmest Color and Pulp Fiction are my two favourite winners of that prize.
In 9th grade we spent a lot of time inside the boarded up condemned powerhouse in Del Mar. Had been flat for a while, so a little crew of us decided to burn a board inside the powerhouse as an offering to the wave gods.
Once board was ablaze with charcoal fluid we commenced to leaping around like savages incanting wishes for large clean surf. A fringe member of the tribe Dirk, most punk rock of the bunch, landed a leap right on a broken Heineken bottle and a wide fin of green glass emerged from the top of his foot. He was standing there howling in the orange firelight, toxic yellowish smoke billowing like a sulfurous hellscape, 8-in green mohawk on his head mimicking the green glass Mohawk splitting his foot lengthwise.
The next day the surf came, big and clean, and lasted almost a week.
Great story! Makes me wonder if the waves were big after I stepped on a piece if trim with a 12 penny nail it that poked out of the top of my boot
Jordy recently referred to Dylan Greaves as “that guy who chases around strange waves”. He didn’t know that the interviewer, Sterling Spencer, and Dylan go way back to the very beginning.
Finally made it back after a long hard ride down what is left of the road they are rebuilding. Once it is done change is going to come hard and fast, but for now it is still the savage piece of paradise I call home. I’ll leave you all with a stock photo of the surf, cause that is what it looks like most of the year anyway.
Hope you all get your chance to strike it out on your own golden road sooner tgan later.
It’s out there waiting for you.
Wave looks fun. Glad that you found one of those.
When I was around 3 years old my parents were remodeling our house and I ran over a bunch of freshly poured foundation slabs. I think they were able to quickly smooth it out.
Dangerous stuff washes ashore in California all the time. Some dumbass in Ventura area picked up a spent canister of phosphorous that burns at 5000 degrees that the US navy uses as a marker and brought it to his house.
trod on a syringe at north steyne back in the day. got stuck in my toe, had to pull it out. went to the docs office in my wetsuit.