[Mishmash] Fw: WHIPPED OCEAN ...SOMETHING WE'LL NEVER SEE.........AMAZING

[Carole]

something sorta like the ocean having a huge barf. 



 
         HERE'S SOMETHING WE'LL NEVER SEE.........AMAZING

  

  
 Suddenly the shoreline north of Sydney were transformed into the Cappuccino
Coast. Foam swallowed an entire beach and half the nearby buildings,
including the local lifeguards' centre, in a freak display of nature at
Yamba in New South Wales. 
One minute a group of teenage surfers were waiting to catch a wave, the next
they were swallowed up in a giant bubble bath. The foam was so light that
they could puff it out of their hands and watch it float away. 
 
Boy in the bubble bath: Tom Woods, 12, emerges from the clouds of foam after
deciding that surfing was not an option 
It stretched for 30 miles out into the Pacific in a phenomenon not seen at
the beach for more than three decades. Scientists explain that the foam is
created by impurities in the ocean, such as salts, chemicals, dead plants,
decomposed fish and excretions from seaweed. All are churned up together by
powerful currents which cause the water to form bubbles. These bubbles stick
to each other as they are carried below the surface by the current towards
the shore. As a wave starts to form on the surface, the motion of the water
causes the bubbles to swirl upwards and, massed together, they become foam. 
The foam 'surfs' towards shore until the wave 'crashes', tossing the foam
into the air. 
 
Whitewash: The foam was so thick it came all the way up to the surf club 
'It's the same effect you get when you whip up a milk shake in a blender,'
explains a marine expert. 'The more powerful the swirl, the more foam you
create on the surface and the lighter it becomes.' In this case, storms off
the New South Wales Coast and further north off Queensland had created a
huge disturbance in the ocean, hitting a stretch of water where there was a
particularly high amount of the substances which form into bubbles. As for
12-year-old beachgoer Tom Woods, who has been surfing since he was two,
riding a wave was out of the question. 'Me and my mates just spent the
afternoon leaping about in that stuff,' he said. 
'It was quite cool to touch and it was really weird. It was like clouds of
air - you could hardly feel it.' 
 
Children play among all the foam which was been whipped up by cyclonic
conditions. 




 



 
 
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