Got any Weed bro?

One of the things I've always wanted to do was to help out some children who may not have the best of chances in life. Not that I am by any means affluent, I have to seriously watch the pennies as anyone these days, but, with a small company that promotes the Ocean and Ocean sports I think it only fair in a location such as Bali where life can be cheap, to give something back and help a youngster out. My fledgling company, liquidmocean, is now the proud sponsor of a cool young Balinese surfer Kadek, or 'Dek' as he likes to be called, originates form the Padma region of Kuta.

On a whim, and a call from someone who wanted some images from the small island of Nusa Lembongan to Bali's south Eastern coastline, I took Kadek over for a weekend so he could get some different waves whilst I was off snapping. Seemed like a good plan.

I never realized such a micro industry existed on the island. Seaweed Farming. The green, brown and beige stuff is everywhere. Every low tide the people head out to the reef shallows to tend and harvest their patches, this means bringing in mountains of the stuff to be cleaned, dried and shipped off to the mainland. Be warned this stuff is also very bloody slippery!

We had a great meal, invited by the Brit managers of a particular dive shop. Hearty laughs, a few Vitamin B's (Bintang's, the local Brew) and some good conversation. Making our way back to the hotel though I decided to walk along the beachfront, bad move. With no coastal lighting it's hard to see the seaweed, the slippery as hell seaweed that's been left on the top of the seawall to dry. I went down like a sack of potato's! Landing on God knows what I put a pretty big gash in my right heel. Not happy. The result was three weeks out of the Ocean, which for a in water surf and Ocean photographer is not exactly conducive to being good news. If you ever head out to Nusa Lembongan then be warned, this stuff waits to ambush ya!

Today's image of a Seaweed Farmer's canoe with Bali's active volcano Mount Agung in the background was taken with a Canon 500D using a Canon 24-105mm f4 L IS USM 

Cheers, more tomorrow,
Mark.
liquidmocean