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01/07/2004: "JH HISTORY "fathom" magazine cover 1971"
FATHOM was a 48 page glossy with 16 pages in colour, printed in Hong Kong to a standard much higher and more affordable than anything available in Australia at the time. In this era it was the best looking dive magazine in the world, (according to countless letters) with a print run of 7,500 for the above issue it was a unique publication of that era.
Overseas diving magazines were not publishing shark information. None had the courage to run a major feature covering the common dangerous species rating their level. Shark pictures were 'bad' for retailers.
The mainsteam press was over-sensationalising info on sharks. People had just begun to swim with them and learned they were not going to be eaten instantly, as had been thought.
In Fathom we had 100% control. For the first time, sharks were presented from a true skindivers viewpoint. The opposition publications gritted their teeth, and still do, years later.
We received letters of praise and compliment from many of the world's inspirational divers. Philippe Cousteau came especially to Australia and offered an interview, something he had refused granting Skin Diver in USA.
Dive shops were slow to advertise and we needed their business to survive. When Rick Poole took a full page colour, Rick's business boomed and stayed that way.
It was a great experience while it lasted but I saw more potential in motion pictures and screening my 16mm shark films in cinemas. With TV advertising the show, we toured coastal Queensland setting box office cinema records with what was basically my home movie of sharks and the sea, pre Jaws era There was no soundtrack in the early days, I narrated each screening live, from a bright portable xenon projector filling huge screens to full houses in large theatres. An underwater nude sequence of a young mermaid got people talking. More free publicity. More about this later...
The hammerhead shark, pictured on the second issue of Fathom that became caught in the beach meshing net off the Gold Coast, Queensland. The nets reduced the shark hazard but they become a problem for other forms of marine life, occasional whales, manta rays and turtles. Many folk falsely believe the nets to be a barrier while in fact they are a simple trap.
FOOTNOTE (March 12 2005) Pages from Fathom 1, 2 and 10 at: www.xanga.com/thejhh
