Seasick: When the Ocean Says No
I’ve surfed through some gnarly stuff: stormwater runoff, polluted rivers, even the occasional brown floater. But I’ve never been made sick just by standing near the ocean. Until now.
When I visited South Australia’s coastline during this unprecedented algal bloom, I expected to see environmental damage. What I didn’t expect was how quickly I’d feel it in my own body. A scratch at the back of my throat, the burning in my eyes, the shortness of breath - all within minutes of arriving at Moana Beach.
The bloom - Karenia mikimotoi - isn’t new to science, but the scale we’re seeing here is. And it's no coincidence. Warmer waters caused by climate change, excess nutrients from possible land runoff, record-breaking drought ensuring sunshine, and calm ocean conditions created a perfect storm. This isn't a freak occurrence. It's a warning.
(Sea Sick)
For surfers, it’s devastating. The ocean isn’t just a playground - it’s a mental health lifeline. In Victor Harbor, I met locals who hadn’t paddled out in weeks or had paddled out and suffered the consequences - respiratory issues, itching eyes or worse.
We spoke with tourism operators, business owners, and recreational fishers. The impact is widespread - fisheries shut down, local economies suffering, surf shops going quiet, parents unsure if they can safely take their kids to the beach.
Take Shane Forbes, owner of the Daily Grind surf shop in McLaren Vale. His space is a temple of stoke - boards, grins, groms. But even he admitted he’d often taken the environment for granted. “This thing’s changed everything,” he told me. “I’m concerned about the environment but it’s never been at the forefront of my mind as we are lucky enough in South Australia to usually have pristine beaches. And all of sudden we are cancelling surf comps, we're not comfortable sending the kids out.”
Or Leighton - the Ding King - a local shaper whose business has been turned upside down. But more painful than the slowdown was the anxiety in his 13-year-old daughter’s voice, “She’s concerned about what’s happening to the sea life, all the beautiful marine life that is washing up dead is quite confronting”
But amid the heartbreak, there were moments of unexpected clarity.
(Sea Sick)
One of them came from Senator Andrew McLachlan, a Liberal, who told us all future policy must put nature first. That’s the kind of thinking we need from all sides - bold, forward-looking, grounded in reality.
We also spoke with scientists, and the message was consistent: this is climate disruption in action. They don’t have all the answers yet, but the path forward is clear - we need to invest in science, declare these events as natural disasters, and support the communities impacted.
Too many people are looking for other explanations: desal plants, Chinese warships, you name it. But misdirection won’t help us breathe easier or get back in the water sooner. The truth matters. And the truth is, we need urgent action on climate - locally, federally, and in every coastal town that might be next.
If you surf in Australia, this is your fight too. The waves don’t care about your politics. But they’ll definitely care if the sea gets too sick to break.
Add your voice to call this what it truly is: a climate-driven natural disaster. Surfers for Climate is calling for updated disaster criteria, an official natural disaster declaration, federal support for long-term ocean health, and clear communication for coastal communities. Visit https://surfersforclimate.org.au/pages/sea-sick and sign the petition to push for urgent action and protect our oceans. Your signature can create real change and support those on the front lines.
// JOSH KIRKMAN
Comments
"The waves don’t care about your politics."
Nor do any politicians. I mean how much longer and louder does one need to scream this is a disaster (maybe not a natural one) and for politicians to do the right thing for once and address the issue at hand.
It's hard not to be apathetic about this when political ignorance is bliss, but why the fuck do we always have to sign petitions just to get potential and current environmental issues like this on the scoreboard.
This is what happens when fertilisers and chemicals being used in NSW and Victoria by cotton farms and the like, make their way into the River Murray and find their way into the sea. If the mouth of the Murray was on the east coast of Australia this whole debacle would be seen in a whole different light by the federal government, and treated accordingly. But, here we are...
Good hypothesis. Doesn’t the ocean flow west to east though? The mouth of the Murray is at the eastern portion of the algal bloom.
Not when it started in late summer. Lots of light E winds this year.
Which bolsters the hypothesis. Coupled with lots of rainfall across the centre and warm southern ocean temps, we got ourselves (a) genuine algal bloom = nutrients + temp.
lotsa kills down here, around Port Macdonnell and the bays around Beachport/Robe.. some suspect-happenings even in as open water (but with deep shore gutters) as Kingston, 42 mile crossing.. Inside the Coorong's gone now.. certainly supports your comments..
Not when it started in late summer. Lots of light E winds this year.
Part of the Murray outflow could end up off the shelf, only to be brought back up by the Bonney Upwelling system. The currents during these upwelling events can transport back to the north-west.
Ryder is referencing the river flows from the eastern states bringing the nutrients and other nasties
Ryder I totally agree this is the truth of the matter !
Last week at Moana cars were driving into the sea foam on the esplanade and completely disappearing. Never seen that before. Heaps of dead stuff.
West beach coated with a brown stain and dead worms some up to a metre long and hundreds of weird looking fish of every colour and description.
Hard to see action on climate change when the leader of the free world thinks it's a hoax and promises to burn baby burn. Liquid gold. $$$.
Climate change lol.. so infantile.
Richard Cheese.
Why do you bother posting that same old card ? Denial, so infantile.
How about you offer up some kind of suggestion/idea instead of your selfish uneducated rhetoric.
I’ve asked you on plenty occasions to engage with me about human induced climate change, it’s all there to see pal, data, data and more data.
What a vacant chamber you must live in. AW
it is an ecumenical chapel with faux-wood paneling and orange carpet, not a chamber.. all part of Gawd's plan. Dick Cheese (very mature handle) ain't infantile, he just beliebs..
...
Peel it back Dick.
Eww... how creepy.
Why is it the desal plant is mentioned and all the experts go into instant denial mode and no further debate, just brushed off.
No mention of tonnage dumped on ocean floor or any maps to show ocean current(s) dispersal up and down the gulfs, and that includes all of the data of such info from day one of desl operation.
Or is it cos the relevant govt departments ain't done any testing or vetting of desal plant?? Imo.
Desal definitely needs a mention in possible contributor to the problem and not in 'conspiracy theory'.
This doc from 2009 sheds a bit of light, especially the mention of BHP Biliton as a stakeholder in these plants. Pages 26/27 worth a look in particular
https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/SAHAStaCERD/2009/1.pdf
Could be something to do with all the particulates in the sky these days??
We all have to take the blame for this. It's contentious that we here in Australia put our hand up & say yes we'll reduce emissions, then you've got the big emitters not really part of the deal. But you still have start local & at a personal level. This is of our making & it's our inherent duty to be part of it's unmaking. To hear about innocent marine life just being suffocated is abhorrent. Each & every one of us has a responsibility to this planet to do our best to make our carbon footprint as light as possible. Composting food scraps via a worm farm is a great start as it reduces many things such as emissions, landfill methane production, nutrient pollution of our waterways & you've got free worm poo to add to your garden from the worm farm. Travel is a bit of a dirty word, saying hey I'll slow down on that one, but planes are all scheduled & they're going to take off with or without you, leaves me a bit dumbfounded. Well done Josh & Belinda for taking time out to give us all a bit more of an insight. We have to have this front & centre of our conversation & do what we can do. Governments can only do so much, it's up to us to take the batten & do whatever you can
This is almost as delusional as old mate that doesn't believe in climate change.
Can you point to one time in history humanity has come together on a personal level to fight something ever? That's a rhetorical question. The answer is no and it's called 'the tragedy of the commons'.
Government regulation is the only answer.
Following natural disasters communities often come together and work towards rebuilding together putting aside their differences and egos. Basic human nature to help another in need and history has plenty of examples.
Climate change is a massively complex global problem and there is not one answer. When top tier polluters have climate deniers in power delusional is waiting for govts to fix things. It was refreshing to see a liberal pollie in the article prioritising nature. Whether or not this attitude filters through to the rest of the party who knows.
Duty starts with the individual and communities at a grassroots level. We can lead by example using more sustainable forms of food and energy. Educating ourselves and others. Money talks and every purchase you make is noted by a team of bean counter troglodytes in the sales/marketing department. Lobby and cast our votes to make gradual change at the top with govt policy and hopefully meet in the middle before its too late.
Be the change you want to see in the world. We're all just one person in 7-8 billion and our contribution may not amount to much but a small change is a change nonetheless.
Your example is of helping out after the fact, something humans are very good at.
Give me an example of them coming together individually BEFORE the disaster and averting it. That's something humans are very bad at, especially decades/centuries out.
these are all good discussion points. how about volunteer firefighters or teams of people doing first aid courses? maybe landcare groups and dune revegetation volunteers predicting erosion events? I'm staying in a town with a classic one.. Robe's Obelisk - a stripey beacon pyramid, was used to store rocket equipment in case of a near-shore shipwreck.. the idea being to shoot a rocket with a string out to a foundering ship, so that the ship might receive baskets of supplies till the weather allows rescue.. was never used, but they drilled weekly!
Well first of all well done Josh for your efforts investigating this climate disaster. Unfortunately it seems that this won't be the last of these events due to warming oceans as emmisions of greenhouse gases continue. The oceans act as a sink absorbing CO2 which casues acidfication & eventually ecosystems collapse. We have the solutions to these events occuring but fossil fuel corporations in hand with governments greenwashing to preserve the Status Quo is their main agenda,not for the majority, just for a select few!
This tragic event again demonstrates what can happen when you start messing with the atmosphere’s natural balance. You unleash forces which can’t be managed. Like coral bleaching we just have to hope it goes away as there is nothing we can do. I also don’t think most people understand the massive inertia in these global systems. These effects may be from the changes 10 years ago or more. One expert I read estimated it will take about 1000 years for the atmosphere to restabilise AFTER we stop changing the CO2 content.
Tragedy what is happening in SA, with the usual, nothing to see here from federal politicians.
Bad news coming out of the US is always in our faces. Some hope on link below.
Climate deniers and China haters I'm not really interested in hearing it.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=china+climate+chan...
Without wanting to be a killjoy to the blame on climate change I'd just like to point out that algae blooms have been around for a long time. Various climatic conditions do conspire at times to create the ideal circumstances for it to happen. I can remember in my lifetime at least 3 major algal blooms in the Bay of Plenty in NZ and the one that I had the most to do with was 1983. No swell for maybe 6 weeks and warmer than usual and most of the bay had the water turning red. No swimming and keep your dogs out of the sea too. My girlfriend of the time had a family place at whangamata and I ended up staying there. Finally a northerly blow came through with swell and the whole thing disapated quickly. Was blamed on agricultural runoff and everything else at the time but was mostly due to a quiet ocean and no movement. Just got to be careful that it's not always climate change. Natural stuff also happens and has done since the start of time.
I think the point is that with climate change and also increased agricultural runoff that these events are becoming more common.
Bang on.
absolutely! no single event can be attributed to climate change BUT the critical point is that adverse events will become more common with climate change. The weather variance in any given location will increase as we get further into the change. Maybe its drought, maybe its flooding, maybe its algal blooms but the variance from the mean will increase until we have a population leveling event that ends the anthropocene
Well said.
oh, @poo and @Tooold.. you don't need to hate on common-sense, just cos there's eco-evangelical wankerism, and eco-opportunism capitalism.. green-washing everywhere, it's all a moving feast. But the jury is not out. Saying it is leads to symptoms like trump.
Reporting from metroplitan Adelaide, we missed most of the problem for many months but it has been devastating lately. Some days there are hundreds of dead fish within a kilometre stretch. Some species seem to be disproportionately affected, for example bango rays, eels, small leatherjackets. Some beachings are suprising, such as abalone, razorfish and today I even found a live morten bay bug - all presumably affected offshore and washed in.
Reports are its much worse underwater. More work is needed on why it happened and things like long term toxicity. The recent cold weather and storms don't seem to have solved the problem as hoped.
Good luck to all the locals. Its already a major disaster. A super major disaster if it spreads further.
Agree @poo, I know many first-world champs, living in plush well-lit cities with roof solar panels and electric cars and building 'sustainable' houses that will last less than 30 years..
We need to instill a 'for the rest of our time here on earth' attitude throughout the whole planet. .. if we don't intend leaning on horrors and human culling and chemical neutering, and AI GM insects and mono-crops, and the inhumanity-politics and xenophobia that would inevitably come with a world like that.
And while this is no new algae, heaps of precident, and there is a combination of factors, nothing like this has occurred on this scale in recorded memory.. (scientific recorded memory being a little scant, but fisheries memory being extremely accurate and recorded well for nearly two centuries.)
At some point these thousands of stories from around the world will trigger something in people who currently think the world is a limitless sewerage pipe with limitless resources.
humanity is at its best when it does things better. Not when it is on the brink, but when it has the resources to make meaningful change instead of profit.
extinction events, yep, they are natural as bro, we'll all get one one day (tom lehrer, RIP): comet. crust crumble mega-lava. eco-collapse. This never was an 'eden'. We are in a glorious non-ice-fire time on this bulb. which is why we are able to know things, share the planet with fellow weirdy creatures, learn more about biota and cosmos and use tech to share and communicate information. won't last forever..
Why choose not to say 'lift your game' to a day-after-day-after-day-after-day sickening of the atmosphere; a 'layer of cling wrap' if the world was a basketball size, (and the infinitesimally thin patches of arable land) while expecting the sea and its creatures to just take whatever we relentlessly scrape away.
I'm not a wowser, first-world champs with roof-panels and eco-cars not only barely make a dent, but the jury is out on getting raw (sic) earth mineral renewable junk from exploitative places, given the practices around it, green is largely just an insta scam. And they are smug wankers that think their carbon doesn't stink, while doing little for the big picture.
We need to be doing big picture, a gee-whiz kids, 'how cool are we for doing energy well as we can' attitude..
Teach your offspring and grandies to reach for less plastics, less gadgets, less 'lectricity, less imports, to give more to others, research intelligently, spearhead and support new ideas and love the things they share our planet with.
'we will all go together, when we go'.
I like to believe that when the inevitable goes down, we'll exhaustedly smile at each other for an incredible journey shared fairly well. Long way to get to that, but the alternative is too middle-ages biblical shitfest..
Great post Base. Kinda inclined to agree.
As Roger Waters says "This species has amused itself to death"
Amusing ourselves to death. Absolutely incredible book.
"Duty now for the future."
We should’ve stuck with “pollution” instead of switching to “climate change” because pollution is a clear, unifying term that everyone gets—nobody disputes that dumping waste or emissions is bad. It galvanizes action, like tackling the algae bloom crisis in South Australia, where nutrient pollution from runoff fuels harmful blooms, wrecking ecosystems and water quality. Practical solutions—cutting agricultural runoff, tightening industrial regulations—flow naturally when we focus on pollution as the core issue.
They had one in Florida on the gulf side a while back. Anyone know what is causing these situations?
The oceans of the world have simply become supermarkets and rubbish dumps.
Overfished, ecological equilibrium’s shattered along with mass corruptions of the tight knitted web of life.
Pollutants of all nature, aerosols in all their forms, rain down on oceans, deliberate dumping of rubbish into waterways, unsewered cities , nutrient run off from our way of life, not just farmers with nitrogenous fertilisers, there’s way more human induced chemicals entering the ocean than fertilisers.
Washing cars and boats in streets where water goes down the stormwater drain into a creek then a river and eventually the ocean, carryover hydrocarbons.
Mass scale generic high volume housing estates, more house , shed, garage, paving, driveway surface areas collecting and diverting water into the street gutters instead of naturally percolating down through soil profiles.
It’s not one thing, it’s us, humans, we are the problem, too many people on the planet needing resources that require energy and food to drive our populations.
Bring back the one child policy and start living on top of each other. AW
Yikes… that is a quite an unhinged comment there. Very strange. You might want to seek help.. maybe get a wellness check? Some pills? Whatever..
The climate change argument.. yawn. You might like to take it up with an expert. Which I am not. So I did a little reading for you on this guy and he seems well informed on the subject, you might like to raise your ire with him. Try and be nice though, he seems like a nice fella. His email addresses are here on his website for your convenience.
https://www.johnclauser.com/contact-me
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/noble-scientist-sa...
“Dr. John Clauser, the co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Physics prize has come out and said the whole nonsense of Climate Change caused exclusively by CO2 is an absolute HOAX. Anyone who has ever studied physics cannot possibly conclude otherwise”
https://climatecite.com/wp-content/uploads/John_Clauser_ICSF_FINAL_May-8...
Please advise us all your results communicating with Dr John Clauser the Nobel Prize winner!
Maybe a pre-warning so I can put some popcorn in the microwave!
Enjoy!
Ps.. Here’s 2 short clips for you all on Mercury (Thimerosal) exposure.
How to you feel about unsustainable ag practices, fertiliser run-off and sea pollution. mr. cheese?
Richard Cheese.
Where did I write that the heating of the planet is purely CO2 induced ?
For the deniers like yourself, it’s an accumulation of all the woeful things humans do to the planet, we are as you know the worst species on earth.
Our time here is insignificant relative to time before us and in front of us, a mere blip on a radar, surely we can do better than the situation we are in at present.
You’ve only got to get in a car and drive anywhere to see degraded landscapes, forests and waterways to name a few., exotic weeds and animals etc.
If you are interested, you seem to like uploading from the internet and never really provide any of your own ideas or evidence backing your views, grab yourself a graph of CO2 output for over the last 100 hundred years, there’s clear correlation with the industrialisation of the world matching periods of rampant CO2 build up at the interface of the Ozone Layer and our atmosphere, but , I know you won’t.
By denying nothing is happening, well that’s just each and every other individuals own personal comedy. AW
You'll be happy to know your tax dollars are going to your cause of removing more carbon before they even take a breath. This is your 'science'. Your kind of people.
"The second is a midwife who described a traumatic late-term abortion in which the mother stated she would use her aborted baby bonus to fund a holiday to Bali — a remark that left the midwife in tears after delivering the baby stillborn."
"Killing a baby after 20 weeks and up until birth entails injecting the baby’s heart with potassium chloride or digoxin and is followed by the early induction of labor of that now stillborn baby."
https://thenewamerican.com/world-news/australia-pays-women-up-to-22000-f...
While the 'govts' of the western world (a fourth of the earth..) encourage unvetted mass immigration.
Revelation 6:8
I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
Yep, Richard Cheese, religion will solve everything. Is that right?
Totally delusional.
Whilst ice caps melt, glaciers retreat, arboreal animals and trees are also retreating to what cold areas remain, birds are seeking higher altitudes to escape heat, wingspans of birds have been increasing in surface area to dissipate heat, body sizes reducing at the same time over the last 70 years.
Trees in Eastern Europe are migrating west to suck in all the nitrogenenous aerosols we produce.
To not think we are having a gross effect is to exhibit a state of denial.
Antarctic bottom water is heating, increased calving of icebergs is a daily occurrence at the poles .
Again, give me some of your brains data, or is that an impossible feat ?
You’re just another regurgitator of others opinions. AW
Dr. John Clauser is not only a climate science denier but believes more CO2 is not caused by humans and is actually good for the planet.
He really should stick to his area of expertise.
Using him to argue against climate change is a classic example of a fake expert.
Haha cult followers you are delusional. Carbon is your enemy... but YOU are carbon. Typical of the self-loathing Australian mindset. Human haters. Your god is 'science' but its a turd rolled in glitter ladies.
2 Thessalonians 2:11
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.
Richard Horton the Editor in Chief at the Lancet said it best:
"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."
Forever chemicals and plastics never needed to be here basesix.. never should have been created in the first place. The village lifestyle was how it was meant to be. Neighbour feeding neighbour from food gardens. Permaculture. Giving back. Lawns are a waste of space.
https://www.limestonepermaculture.com/
The scientific consensus on the S.A. situation (so far) seems to be that it's caused by a number of factors.
The 2023 floods causing huge amounts of nutrients and other waste from the Murray mouth combined with an extended marine heat wave and months of light winds. Even the KI bushfires which destroyed almost a third of the Islands flora has been touted as a possible factor.
All these factors are results of a warming planet with the most probable cause being elevated levels of CO2 in the atmosphere caused by humans insatiable need for power.
Maps of these toxic blooms shows an increase from almost none 50 years ago to large blooms everywhere around the planet now.
You are special, very special. ;- ).
Warren Treadrea is a so called Sovereign Citizen so as to avoid all the massive debts he owes to entities. An easy out in my opinion.
The minute anyone writes a biblical reply to a science topic, well, you’ve lost me.
Still looking for evidence of your demigod Richard. AW
It should be called the Murray A-hole, not mouth.
This is before the bloom but shows where the sediment can go.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-13/sa-elder-describes-algal-bloom-de...
Such a devastating event. Couldn’t imagine going down to my local beach and all the sea life being dead.
I can relate- after devastating fish kills in the Richmond it's incredibly depressing to see such ecological carnage.
I havn't been to the beach since it started.
I don't want to.
Devastated.
Especially for my kids.