OK.

I'm gonna stop wingeing about the cold (13 deg & blowing today) & lack of wind (when I can get out).
At least we've got water...
(a) to drink
(b) to sail on

Hope you guys in S.A. get some water soooon

From SMH today + photo of dead turtle
Death Stalks on a parched lake shore

ON THE shores of the beautiful but beleaguered Lake Bonney - where the turtles have started dying as the water retreats, stagnates and grows increasingly salty - live sceptics of man-made climate change.

Robyn O'Dea, who runs the newsagency in Barmera, the South Australian Riverland's town on the edge of the lake, is one.

"I think we are more in a cyclical thing," she says of the conditions that have left the Murray-Darling Basin parched in recent years.

Professor Garnaut has warned that without action against climate change, temperature rises are likely to greatly exceed that range and leave the Murray-Darling Basin an apocalyptic wasteland by 2100.

But while he is calling for urgent action to cut carbon emissions, Mrs O'Dea believes the Federal Government should be putting much more money and energy into buying back water for the environment if it wants to save Lake Bonney. Otherwise it will be dead long before 2100, she fears.

The natural lake - a major tourist attraction - was cut off from the Murray River a year ago to save water for irrigation and human consumption. Its normal surface area of 1700 hectares loses 29,000 megalitres of water a year to evaporation.

The move has already seen the shoreline of the lake retreat by up to 200 metres in places, and its salinity more than double, Mrs O'Dea says.

Among the creatures that live in Lake Bonney are broad-shelled turtles, which have been declared threatened in South Australia. Before their winter hibernation this year, unusual numbers were found dead or sick.

The aquatic vegetation and crustaceans the turtles feed on have been decimated, Mrs O'Dea says. "We have set up a turtle hospital and are expecting to deal with hundreds and hundreds of turtles … dead and sick."

Big Murray cod - listed as vulnerable by the Federal Government - have also been washing up on the shores in increasing numbers.

"We need to get an environmental flow into the lake," Mrs O'Dea says. "All the aquatic life is stressed.

"I am a climate-change sceptic. I believe politicians are brainwashing the public into believing in climate change to shift the blame off of their mismanagement of our water resources. My biggest fear is that the politicians will continue to use climate change as an excuse to not do enough about water over-allocation. The easiest thing will be for them to sacrifice environmental sites across the Murray-Darling Basin."

Sites like Lake Bonney.