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11/10/2006: ""THE FIRST" GIANT MAORI WRASSE speared in Australia (1963)"

In the early days it was a challenge to get close to one of these great, magnificent fish. They would always keep their distance - well away from the range of spear guns.

Vic Ley speared this one on the final day of our trip to North West Island aboard Riversong diving by day, camping on the island at night. The fish was the first large Hump Head Maori Wrasse to appear in Australian Skindivers Magazine known to chronicle any such outstanding catch.

Valerie Heighes (later Taylor) took some of the following pictures using my new camera. I lay on a stretcher under a tree on the island, increasingly delerious with coral poisoning in my leg.

By 1986 I was promoting the protection of these fish with a picture story in People magazine, (Australia). It featured a two page picture of a very large and docile maori wrasse with divers.

So large was the fish the editor had captioned the photo this is not a trick picture. The fish was one of several being enjoyed by visiting photographers at The Cod Hole on the northern Great Barrier Reef.

Years earlier in The Red Sea divers were food-training similiar sized giants. It was to our amazement such things were indeed possible.

The following pictures (this month) are all vintage material, most never have been published before. The intended purpose here is to not simply glorify underwater hunting. It is a record of fish populations, a chronicle of free diving attitudes and 'evolution' and most of all, a record of how fragile life is in shallow waters.

J H