Some may have looked out at the ocean from Eurobodalla shores on Sunday and thought “that’s got to be an underground bunker to protect people from an impending meteor strike!”
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Fortunately, they were wrong.
Jim Gibson from Long Beach took this photo of a barge carrying an enormous object while it sailed past in a northerly direction on Sunday and, like many others, wondered what it was.
“My mate from England thought it was a UFO,” Bay Post/Moruya Examiner sports journalist Dean Benson said.
Mr Gibson investigated the matter and it turned out that the object was the second of three disused 18-million-litre heavy oil storage tanks being transported from Bell Bay in Tasmania.
The Bell Bay power station has long since been converted to gas, so the tanks will be installed on a new diesel tank farm on a six-hectare site at Mayfield near Newcastle, part of the old BHP steelworks site, which is being set up by Stolt Tank Containers.
Eurobodalla residents can expect to see a similar sight soon as the third tank is due to be barged north in eight days’ time.
Stolt has reportedly said that it was looking for a 12-hour window of good weather to get the barge across Bass Strait, and after this they have places along the coast where they can call in to in case of bad weather.