Our big blue seas

BIG PLANS: The Kermadecs are about 1000km northeast of the top tip of the North Island and plans are afoot to create a huge marine sanctuary around them.

I have always wanted to live close to the sea and one of these days I am going to ... no wait a minute, I do.

That's unlike the folks in the great inland swathes of Europe and Asia and America who are so very far away from the sight and sounds of breaking waves and shrieking seabirds,
and the ever-changing colours of the ocean and the seashells and driftwood which settle upon its shoreline.

I saw a documentary many years ago about a family from somewhere in Nebraska or Kansas, thousands of kilometres from the Pacific or the Atlantic, who took a journey to see it for the first time.

The father was about 40 and his wife the same ... the kids were teenagers and none of them, not one, had ever seen the great seas so far from their state.

They were all awed and emotional, not to mention hooked by the concept of its enormous size.

Oh yes, they had read and learned about the ocean explorers and knew all too well that hotshot spots like Los Angeles and Miami and New York were oceanside ... but seeing was truly believing.

I can't get my head around the whole idea of reaching the age of 40 and having never seen an ocean wave.

As a lad our family sprouted from a house right on the beachfront so we were used to seeing dad washing the salt spray off the front windows after a fiery easterly and mum wandering across the road toward the shingle with a bowlful of dinner scraps to feed the waiting seagulls.

We would lie awake and listen to the roar of the waves created from some great storm far away out to the east, and of course the beach landscape was a splendid playground.

We would build great huts from the sticks and dried seaweed and flotsam from those storms and pretend we were far, far away on some deserted island ... until 5.30 when mum would occasionally have to wander over to ask "do you want your tea or not?"

Oh and I can assure you ... when you are a castaway about 300m from home you do tend to build up an appetite.

But we never took the sea for granted.

Not when the lights of ships could be seen moving upon it at night, and not while it seemed to change its moods every single day.

We would fish in it and swim in it, challenging that wicked undertow to do its damnedest as we fought our way back to shore.

My first experience of gravel rash.

The good thing about this land is that the furthest place from the coastline, geographically, is Cromwell and it's only about 120km from either the Pacific or the Tasman.

The road distance of many spots is, however, a lot further, but even then you're talking less than 150km.

From Lincoln in Nebraska to the Atlantic seaboard it's about 1850km.
Quite a hike.

It is nice to have a seaside, and it is something to celebrate and something to be fascinated by, especially by what lies beneath those waves and what fine and wild creatures live along those coastlines.

The first series of a Kiwi-funded programme called Our Big Blue Backyard was a picturesque offering and its acclaim, in terms of ratings, assured a second would be made - which it has.

And while the first centred on our three main islands, this second series ventures slightly further afield to places such as the Kermadec Islands, which I'm sure we've all heard of but know little about.

This is when the true value of television (forget that idiotic dross on Bravo and whatever) as an entertainer and educator comes nicely into play.

The Kermadecs are about 1000km northeast of the top tip of the North Island, and plans are afoot to create a huge marine sanctuary around them.

They are filled with wildlife -- under the waves and above -- so expect some stunning visuals from our great, extended big blue backyard ... I was going to say backwaters but that doesn't sound right.

● Our Big Blue Backyard, TV1 at 7.30pm Sunday: The underwater footage within this first part of the second series should be remarkable. It is spring across the Kermadec Islands chain and that means the plankton all emerge in great cloudy blooms in the blue waters. And where there are lots of plankton there will be whales. As it is highly unlikely these are seafronts we will everwalk upon, this is a fine and picturesque alternative.

ON THE BOX

● Renters, TV2 at 8pm Thursday: Here we have what is basically part one of a two-part series over the same night, although this is the local version of how best to wreck someone else's property and belongings. To say this series has been an eye-opener would indeed be an understatement, and here we have the results of what happened when the tenant is in possession of that slightly bizarre activity/hobby/ailment called hoarding. The Dunedin property at the centre of the story needed a fair old shake-up afterwards.

● Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords, TV2 at 9.30pm Thursday: Here's part two of the wreckage in suburbia show - and this is the UK version of it. However, as the title points out it is not only aimed at the tenants who transgress - it profiles some dodgy landlords as well. Happy days.

● Gypsy Kids, TV3 at 9.40pm Thursday: The gypsies, the travellers, the wanderers. A poem I remember from school by Robert W. Service caught my young attention and imagination. It began ... "There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't stay still, So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will. They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain's crest; Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don't know how to rest." This three-part series has a point of difference though. It focuses on the children of the travellers ... How they learn, how they follow their dreams while effectively always on the move.