What you are seeing in this photo looks like an ordinary photo that a proud parent would take of their kids on the beach. The only thing unusual about it is the presence of that buoy, which looks like something that your kids would play on. Unfortunately, it was later revealed that this seemingly harmless beach buoy was actually a World War II bomb that had washed ashore.
According to ABC News, Kelly Gravell of Burry Port, Wales, was the one who saw the object, while her children were playing on their boogie boards . She states that "we get things washed up all the time, so we thought it was a buoy", and she took pictures of it with her children Erin, 6, and Ellis, 4.
The kids touched this so-called buoy and knocked it around a bit. It was five days later when Pembrey Country Park officials announced on their Facebook page that the buoy was, in fact, a United States military mine bomb. It was not revealed until the barnacles around it began to drop off, and the writing on it became exposed.
Kelly Gravell and her husband Gareth were notified of the news by a friend who saw the photo on Facebook. Needless to say it was "completely shocking". The Metro reports that the Gravell children were more interested in the barnacles on it, and Kelly recalls making a joke that the object that was washed ashore looked like a big bomb.
The Coast Guard was notified, who then contacted the bomb squad. The beach was evacuated, and there was a detonation of the bomb on 6 PM on Monday evening, on August 17, 2015. There were a lot of people around to see this blast, which has been posted on many video-sharing sites. In the crowd was the Gravell family, no doubt thankful that the buoy/bomb didn't go off when they were taking pictures around it.
It is pretty clear that people need to be more mindful of what washes up on the beach. I have to admit, if I was on the beach, and I saw something like what the Gravell family saw, I would not assume that it was a bomb. In fact, I'm pretty certain that I would probably allow my children to play on it, and probably take their picture of it and, yes, post it on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Fortunately, for the Gravell family, it appears that they really dodged a bullet in this situation. There doesn't seem to be any report of how the bomb squad detonated it, which makes me wonder why the bomb had not detonated after all this time. After all, if that bomb had been around since World War II, then it is at least 60 years old.
So far, I haven't heard any reports of the coast guard investigating the beach for any other vintage marine bombs, but honestly, they really should. Otherwise, you're going to have an incident like the "Sea Mine" scene from the comedy movie Hot Fuzz.
