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08/07/2004: "SHIPWRECK ....... COOMA propeller, North Reef memoir"

If you watched the TV series Flipper in the sixties, (a dolphin equivilent of Skippy) you may have seen regular but brief scenes of this huge propeller in every other episode. It was a stunning sequence.

This picture was taken during a spearfishing trip with Wally G. Muller aboard his 48 foot licensed fishing boat Riversong. A trip on the Riversong in that era was today like a flight aboard the space shuttle (if you were a 22 year old spearo like the young man pictured here)!

About 1970 unknown salvage divers seperated the bronze propellers, presumeably with great difficulty into individual blades. We know this because one of the blades 'got away from them' and floated into the shallows where it became lodged. Maybe it's still there?

A similar photo to this was a cover shot on SKIN DIVER in 1965 for Ron Taylor.

Note: the Calypso-Phot French 35mm still camera. A good condition of this forerunner to the Nikonos would today be worth more than the scrap metal value of a single bronze propeller blade pirated from this wreck site.