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10/11/2005: "AUSTRALIAN SEAFARI sea snake"
While hosting a 12 day fathom magazine dive safari abaord Coralita we filmed the venomeous sea snakes at Centennary Reef in The Swain Reefs with 16mm film.
Jocelyn wears a thin wet suit tailor-made by Ron Harding's Sport Store, Manly. (No relation to me, although he had a brother with the same name).
Her camera is a Nikonos II or III. The 72 cu ft tank was steel. Her regulator was a Healthways Scubair. All very standard in the era. No buoyancy vest then required.
Jocelyn was a 23 year-old New Zealander who had been living in Sydney for two years. She worked at the famous The Grape Escape restaurant near North Sydney in the centre of the advertising agency world.
Later her slo-mo underwater bubble swim which I filmed in crystal clear Coral Sea waters (also featured in Australian Seafari) was edited into the infamous skin perfume commercial for TV.
The sequence created considerable controversy, especially in Queensland when it was exhibited in cinemas to thousands of school children between Maryborough and Cairns in the Bjelke-Petersen era.
The debate peaked with questions asked in state parliment. Nothing was reported in the news media, fortunately or unfortunately. The police and education department investigated and found the film OK.
This was fortunate as the chief film censor was yet to issue a (G) certificate for this newly edited film.
