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27/06/2004: "JH HISTORY Lobster JH and Vic Ley (1963) photo: Ron Taylor"
Vic and I quit our jobs and were heading north for three months of diving with a rented timber boat, a tent and a 45 HP outboard motor. At Woolgoolga we picked up the 7 kg crayfish, (now known as rock lobster). It wasn't eaten. We sold it to the original porpoise pool at Tweed Heads (NSW) to help pay for travel costs.
By this stage we had another couple with us, Ron Taylor and his girlfriend Valerie. It was to be an amazing adventure.
I 'blacked-out' and almost drowned during a deep free dive, we speared fish, photographed sharks and sea snakes and camped on Nor' West Island where I developed 'coral poisioning' in my knee and could not walk or even stand up.
I was saved by the early return of "Riversong" and the later to be legend, Captain Wally G Muller of 'Coralita' charter boat fame in the Coral Sea.
For each of us it was an amazing adventure at a time with fewer people, less boats, more fish, more sharks. We became life-long friends too.
I did not return to ordinary work either. This was the beginning of a professional association with the new world of underwater photo journalism and documentary films.
