About 500 people came to Wainamu Beach, Raglan to the Banners on the Beach event supporting the Oil Free Seas Flotilla. It was a pleasant 25 minute walk from Raglan Town across the footbridge, then along the beach to the gathering site just past the area commonly called the ‘kite surfing beach’. In addition to the huge crowd with their banners 19 dogs made the point that they didn’t want their beautiful exercise beach polluted with oil. And there was one goat along as well. I’m told the goat’s name is Simon.
Captions on the banners and flags in English and Te Reo covered topics including, ‘Anadarko go back to Texas’, ‘Why keep safety a secret?’, ‘Oil Free Beaches, ‘Stand up NZ – stop the drill’, ‘I am the sea- the sea is me’, ‘The fact of the matter is, this democracy is rigged’ and a very colourful umbrella had the words ‘No deep sea oil’ on it in black letters.
Later Angeline Greensill, environmental spokesperson for Tainui Awhiro and Phil McCabe of Kiwis Against Seabed Mining spoke to the crowd. Angeline thanked everybody for coming and said that the deep-sea oil drilling isn’t necessary. Phil gave a message from Bunny Mcdiarmid on the Oil Free seas Flotilla of, “Thank you, Thank you.’
Phil then suggested that the group form a human chain down the beach. The crowd then formed into a single line looking out to sea, stretching from the South Head area almost to the Kokiri Centre.
There were over 35 similar events held at beaches all over New Zealand today, Saturday 23 November 2013.