This was a memorable day with Ben Cropp aboard his 3.9 meter dinghy. Ben took his FreedomIII out to Batt Reef, some 31km from home base at Port Douglas. It was a beautiful calm day. We motored onto the shallows of this big sandy reef. In 10 feet of water we spotted a large tiger shark and began following it, with intentions to film using a pole camera. What happened later was totally unexpected and a bit scary - even for us experienced-with-sharks guys.
Text of the event is located in ARCHIVES. Tip: use the search function.
Dial Up Versionwww.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-S_nDbUtfQ
In the auto selected scene above, Captain Wally Muller appears to be inspecting the bent propeller of his charter vessel, Coralita. Jocelyn Edwards is on the dive platform. All the January 2008 pictures are compiled into a neat audio-viz.
These jaws led me to a well paid 10-day job as a 'shark lecturer' which was sufficient to buy a brand new Rolleiflex camera with Rolleimarin housing.
Something positive came out of what would be commonly considered to be a negative deed today.
In 1963 you were almost handed a medal for dispatching a man eater such as this. (More pictures follow).
Popular opinion is against most forms of killing yet these same folk think nothing of eating meat - which is animal flesh dripping with bloood,(sic) commonly thought of as the juice.
The situation in 1963. A 21-year old kid swimming with a shotgun powerhead sees a shark and thumps it. Simple as that, no great thought involved, just something to instinctively do in that era.
One of the world's (late) great psychologists was also into scuba. William C Coe was aboard Coralita destination Saumarez Reef on a one-off expedition. He told us how he was a jet fighter pilot during the Korean war.
One day he shot a dog on the ground with the 50 caliber aircraft cannons for no reason except he had the power to do so.
Bill was aged about 21 years.
How did you react to the Russian-built MiG's used by the enemy?
"When we encountered Russian-built MiG's we'd high-tail it out of there, fast" said Bill.
"During the 1960's well known Australian Spearfishers and a few potential underwater movie stars commenced sensationalising the killing of large groupers and sharks using spearguns and powerheads and the general public perceived that this was what spearfishing was all about.
Those dedicated to carrying out the sport for the long term were horrified by this promotion of killing easy prey for the sake of financial gain and publicity.
Perhaps then the perpetrators realised that publications like National Geographic did not respect the slaughter of easy prey and they then turned their back on the sport and moved into filming live underwater creatures".
UNDERWATER MOVIES ...... at Sydney's Union Theatre
May 1968, the era of in-person live narration film shows
The shows were a sell-out. 624 seats per session. Live commentary with records selected and played (by me) from the bio box courtesy of radio 2UW's Gary Jaeger and Ray Bean.
Fantastic to see Ron's stunning underwater shots with music by Nelson Riddle featuring The Untouchables, Route 66 TV theme, The Defenders theme. Plus The Shadows, The Ventures and other instrumental hits.
It was film making mixed with DJ - an early version of cinemateque. Fantastic fun and entertainment not seen today. Film footage was often original Kodachrome, bright brilliant colors, and commentary by the then world spear fishing champion and underwater photography ace.
AUSSIE SHIPWRECK ...... makes cover of (USA) Skin Diver
Steamship Cooma prop at North Reef
Gladstone diver 'Ron Thomas' salvaged two of the bronze propellers when he found these were attached to the boss (?) by bolts.
During the pirate salvage job a third prop was washed into the shallows where it possibly still is.
The remaining blade is within the wreck, hidden.
Early Flipper (TV) and a feature film Around the World Under the Sea used cut-away shots of this beautiful propeller as filmed by Ben Cropp.
The wreck is in shallow water on a corner of the reef subjected to a strong wave surge.
My camera in a French-designed Calypso-Phot, the forerunner to 35mm Nikonos. The bronze letter M was the only remaining letter from the COOMA stern.
Ron Taylor recorded this cover picture with his 6X6 medium format wide-angle Rolleiflex. The first Australian underwater cover photograph for what was then the world's leading dive magazine, (in English). It was the February 1965 issue.
In the same issue was the first pictures and story on Australian sea snakes.
This was the era of Jacques Cousteau's World Without Sun movie. Skin Diver Magazine ran a very generous ten pages promotion.
The wreck is located at North Reef in the Capricorn and Bunker Group, offshore from Gladstone, Queensland.
If the propeller existed today it would be a stunning subject for underwater photography worth many millions in PR and tourist dollar values.
The Diving Sixties was a learning period.
Impossible to predict the future appeal of scuba and advances in underwater photography.
By the seventies a clearer picture of the marine future was taking shape.
WHALE SHARK MAKES HEADLINES ...... Seal Rocks, NSW
In the sixties whale sharks were still a sensational and rare subject to be filmed. Only a couple had ever been seen by divers underwater. One was in The Red Sea, (by Hans Hass) another - the first in Australia was off Montague Island, New South Wales in 1964 (with cameraman Ben Cropp and diver George Meyer).
The 1968 Seal Rocks Encounter featured a much larger whale shark with not quite as clear underwater visibility conditions.
My black and white 35mm pictures made a three pages picture story in a Sydney evening tabloid that was syndicated around the world. These were the first 35mm pictures, all previous whale shark pictures taken in the world were off tiny 16mm movie film frames.
At Brisbane some years later, whale sharks were still a much sought subject to film. I was quizzed by one of the then leading American underwater film cameramen-lecturers, "John, where can we (both) go to film a whale shark in Australia"?
My answer was not entirely honest as I'd not been there - "The north-west of Western Australia."
Several years later the whale sharks were 'discovered' off Exmouth in the north-west of Western Australia by a small National Geographic sponsored team. When the discovery was still hot news to only a few people I used an introduction by a friend to do something for TV in Australia.
We then suggested to a high rating current affairs TV show that we could film them underwater scenes for a whale shark story at Exmouth.
The show researchers noted with interest the details, then ceased contact and soon after sent their own people to do the story.
The producer and the researcher who I spoke with have since risen to the tops of their television professions.
A 40 HP outboard on an aluminium boat was the standard choice during the sixties. It would carry four divers in sufficient comfort. City housing preferences have changed. Not many people have the space to store a small boat at home anymore. Dive shops fill the need of dropping people in the best known spots without people needing to own their own boat as in the old days.
Many people drop out of diving after a few years. Not owning a boat is one of the possible reasons
Mike Perry was having an early morning swim at Balmoral Beach in Sydney Harbour. Just off the beach he spotted a whale. A whale in the harbour was a very rare event, especially in 1967 when they had been hunted to the brink of extinction.
Mike called me and suggested we try for some pictures. He was a reporter with The Sun newspaper, a Sydney evening tabloid that regularly ran underwater stories on the front page.
I called our mutual mate John C Fairfax. He had the car, I had the boat but no car. It was his day off so some minutes later he showed up with musician Michael Lawler (Dig Richards & The R Jays) who would join us and we shot off to Rose Bay to launch the boat and pick up Mike at Balmoral.
The whales turned out to be a mother with a recently born calf. The calf was photogenic being a light color in the dark waters. The mother was jet black. These were rare Southern Right Whales.
Our pictures made made page one with a follow-up the next day when a scientist described how rare these whales were.
Since 1967 the species has made a comeback.
Underwater pictures of whales were not commonly seen in books by Cousteau or Hass. I received a telegram from National Geographic requesting a purchase and later another offer from LIFE magazine. That was all. Whales were not popular yet.
There was not the same interest in whale photographs in 1967 that there is today.
People did not know whether to love them or hate them I suppose.
For me it was an exciting near-death experience, in those days all I knew about whales was the biblical story of Jonah being swallowed by one of them.
I might have been on the menu that day and took a chance with fingers crossed hoping this huge creature swimming toward me was not going to open it's mouth.
My brave friends refused to enter the water until I exposed a roll of film and got out to reload.
In the 1960's Sydney divers would drop in on the wreck of the Dunbar whenever the sea was calm enough.
It was not a 'wreck' - more a pile of rubble or a wreck site. Located beneath high cliffs there was always wave action bouncing back from the rocks.
John Gillies small dive boat was named Sovereign and would regularly for years be seen anchored over the Dunbar site. He was keen. If we knew what he was finding more of us would have dropped in.
Gillies kept his discoveries secret from the media during the sixties.
In 1971 he allowed me to take a few photographs for fathom magazine.
The dates on the coins is deliberately hidden to hide they are from the era. All were pre 1857 of course.
Holes drilled through coins indicate they were worn around the neck of the owner. On a ship the best safe place.
Perhaps these coins were from corpses? 121 of the 122 aboard were to perish within hours. A cold and very rough winter sea with plenty of sharks.
What a welcome to Australia for these migrants after their long boat voyage from England?
Wrecked upon arrival when the Captain sailed the ship into the rocks in the mistake they were about to enter Sydney Harbour. There is a gap in the cliff which tricked him, perhaps in foggy conditions.
Named The Gap it is a regular Sydney suicide leap location onto rocks below.
Spirits of the departed could be in need of an explanation?
AUSTRALIAN ABALONE DIVER ...... Mallacoota, Victoria
The underwater gold rush for abalone began in the mid-sixties. Spear fishermen with underwater experience quit their usual jobs and flocked to ports like Mallacoota near the New South Wales and Victoria border.
What happened next would fill a book. A good project for anyone with an interest in probing the minds of these underwater professionals.
A warning, cold water slows blood flow and may starve brains of lively thinking, as was claimed and even admitted. Or perhaps it was the monotony of scraping shellfish from rocks?
Watching for big sharks on the prowl should have kept senses awake. In the sixties there was a boom then a bust period for ab divers. License restrictions later introduced saved the business in the seventies.
John Barlow at Seal Rocks NSW, with JM Harding (senior), 1964
Anyone who explored the Australian seas in the 1960's was probably a spear fisherman. Scuba existed of course. Air filling stations did not. Portable compressors were bulky and expensive.
We might take a tank of air each, use it on a dive, then go snorkeling with a spear gun for the next three or four hours.
Or we might snorkel until a good location was found then go for the scuba dive. Some went spear fishing with scuba in the sixties which created another problem for the fish.
Free divers make the best scuba divers due to their greater level of confidence and swimming ability.
Scuba does not allow the same high level of physical exertion that's possible with snorkel diving.
A good free diver will become a better scuba diver and with healthier lungs as a bonus.
In 1971 the Australian version of scuba schools began.
Scuba rapidly became more popular than spear fishing. A steady decline is coastal fish populations has continued to this day.
The majority of the early divers world wide began as spear fishermen then expanded their areas of interest to include other things. Photography, commercial diving, dive training and later, marine biology.
Note: Yellowtail Kingfish were a "B" grade table fish in New South Wales in 1963.
Today kingfish are prized by Japanese chefs who thinly slice them for sashimi.
Big fish like that shown above would be extremely rare today. Big fish should be protected as they produce more eggs.
Take small fish, throw all the big one's back - a dream scenario of course. Maybe one day, if promoted with a campaign.
YELLOWTAIL KINGFISH ....... 'Gas gun' at Montague Island
John Barlow, Port Hacking Penguins, CO2 powered speargun
Returning from the Australian Championships at Kangaroo Island, South Australia in early 1964, John and his friends had a plan to dive Gabo Island near Mallacoota, Victoria.
The sea was rough so they proceeded north to Montague Island where this picture was taken. Yellowtail Kingfish were plentiful in those days - before fisherman's traps virtually wiped the species out in the 1980's.
Had Barlow and his mates dived at Gabo Island they would have been the first to discover that vast bed of large abalone that existed then.
It would have inspired them into professional abalone diving on the spot.
Instead it took a further 18 months before word spread and the underwater 'gold rush' began. A business man in Sydney was offering two shillings (.20 cents) per pound for abalone meat. There was tons of these shellfish covering rocks everywhere in those southern waters.
In today's values that would be about $5 per kilo for the abalone meat when removed from the shell.
The price has risen about 20-fold for today's millionaire professional divers who earn about AUD$500,000 per year.
It's not all roses. An abalone disease in New South Wales waters between Shoal Bay (North of Newcastle) and Jervis Bay (South of Sydney) prevents the taking of 'abs' from this region.
The problem has spread further south and now appears in two Victorian locations. There is no hazard to humans from the disease which kills abalone.
DIVER BOAT HEADING NORTH........ Long Reef, Sydney 1963
Vic 'Snowie' Ley
One of the best-looking boats of all in 1963. Adequately powered by a 45 HP motor it carried four friends from the White Water Wanderers (the Bondi club) on outing's every weekend.
The one major difference between those days and now is - back then we got into our wet suits just before a dive. Suits might become too warm in summer.
This luxury not possible in the crowded dive shop owned boats of today. There would be chaos.
Vic Ley was to become an Australian spear fishing champion who represented us at the World Championships held in Cuba, 1967
After that he went professional abalone diving with his mates at Mallacoota, (Victoria) at a time when abalone laws were basic. With the catch steadily declining this forced many others to quit the business.
A short time later, near-free licenses were introduced for those that remained in the game. Today these same license are valued and sell for several million dollars each.
(Left) Tanya Binning being filmed for a radio 2UW advertising film. (Right) Tanya snorkeling at The Big Island off the village of Wooli, New South Wales.
A surfing magazine 'recently' ran eight pages of pictures and text featuring Tanya.
NATIONAL JUNIOR CHAMPION ...... Sydney Sea Hunters club
Sydney Harbour, 21 July 1962
Len McLeod was an apprentice plumber who won the title of AUSTRALIAN JUNIOR CHAMPION. The Sydney Sea Hunters was the only inner city club with members living from Glebe, Ultimo, Erskinville, Tempe - all poor suburbs in those times, today the exact opposite. The advised trend was to join a club close to where you lived.
There was a club meeting once per month where we exchanged information and techniques, decided where the outings would be held and voted on matters concerning all clubs.
Also once per month we'd have our own spear fishing competition held within the metro area of say 100km north or south of the city - usually much less.
Once per month there was the competition which involved all the Sydney clubs. A big event with results published in the monthly association publication Australian Skindivers Magazine a very fine effort by advertising guru Jack Evans.
In addition other competitions occurred during public holiday weekends, January, Easter, October and Christmas.
This was how we got together and learned from each other. The senior guys helping the juniors with advice. Enough boats were owned to carry all the members. It was expected that fuel costs would be shared by the passengers.
Today dive shops have replaced dive clubs. Nothing much is free. Diving is over-priced. Face masks that cost the importer $5 are retailed for over $100 and so on.
Where we did not have BCD's (buoyancy vests) when using scuba and compensated for this by adjusting our weight belt and breathing accordingly - today a compulsory BCD costs over $1200 and is the most expensive item of all.
The split swim fin is marketed as producing more power. Not one fish in the ocean has a split tail fin. It's a gimmick which allows poor athletics to appear equal to others.
Deep free divers in competition use the largest fins/flippers possible. Nothing with splits.
CLUB TRIVIA
Club President, Bob Taylor is now retired and lives at Currarong in a beach front property. Bob would like Ken Campbell to make contact with him again to hear an important and interesting story and an apology. (Ken was last known to be living at Townsville where he was a book binder by trade).
Other members. Mike Melville is a professor at the University of New South Wales. Garry Flanagan often spear fishes at Hat Head NSW, Bruce Brown may still be involved in the fresh foods industry at Ermington, Sydney, John Tregaskis was involved with fresh seafood retailing. Lee Kain was in a similar business at Tully. North Queensland. Miss Kay Milburn was in a North Sydney advertising agency. Ken Hines, Jim Read whereabouts are unknown. Who knows the whereabouts of John Magill last known to be an accountant with Qantas.
State Spear Fishing Championship, Currarong October 1962
A great aspect of the spearfishing club lifestyle was the weekend camping trips along the coast. The biggest event was the New South Wales state championships.
The more grander title event was The Australian championships - held in a different state each year.
The 2007 event was expected to attract only about thirty to fifty participants. A sign-on fee of $350 per person seems steep.
The rules of spear fishing competitions needed a complete review with new challenges added, decades ago. Something that would make it a true sport that might attract sponsors and TV coverage much the same as what is happening with surf.
The sport itself is a fantastic "man versus the sea" test.
The old rules of spearing competitions allowed divers to secretly swap the many extra fish between themselves. Worse was the wasted fish that would never be consumed. This oversight turned the once beautiful shallow underwater rocky reefs into virtual deserts.
The existing spearfishing association today blames the media for destroying its image with sensational pictures (some of which are elsewhere on this blog) when the real destruction came from within.
Australia's only WORLD SPEAR FISHING CHAMPION (1965) became fed-up with the waste of fish involved in competitions and left the sport in 1967.
This was shocking and inexcusable rubbish fish waste as witnessed at weigh-ins by all, including the general public. Nobody enjoyed it. Most would have welcomed a change. It did not happen.
This waste was reef fish taken only for points, later thrown away.
Cockies, cale, ruxton, wirrah, maori, parrotfish, ling, silver drummer, by the tonne.
However, this is nothing compared with what a prawn trawler wastes in a single night. It did matter as these fish lived in shallow water mostly less than 15 meters deep. This is snorkel country which was accessible to the majority. To families who could have enjoyed snorkeling together with something worth seeing. Plus underwater photography competition possibilities galore.
Sharks, sting rays and lobster were not included in competitions.
Blue Groper were voluntarily banned and promoted to the fisheries department as a species to be protected - which did happen only after 95% (a guess) of them were wiped out. There was a time when you could not get anywhere near a "blue". Today they are common and quite tame.
The same could apply to all the fish that were hunted for what has become points that are represented today by old tarnished trophies identical in design to tennis, golf, football or whatever.
(The world championship trophy was an art form, a statue replica of antiquity - being French this could be expected. What could we produce - a silver boomerang)?
Spear fishing with scuba was not allowed in competitions and this too was promoted into a legal ban now enforced by fisheries departments. The ban gives deep water reef species some protection. A big plus.
John Harding Snr. July 1962, Merimbula Lake, southern NSW
Wetsuit imported from France. Tarzan brand with nylon lining - superior to anything available in 2008. Speargun a Bazooka by Undersee Products - the standard choice for Sydney divers of that era, probably still being manufactured today.
Mask is a Tarzan from France. The snorkel is rubbish.
WHITE POINTER SHARK ..... First Underwater Pictures
The first photo frame of the following sequence
These are the first underwater pictures of a white pointer shark (also known as the great white shark) ever taken in Australia and possibly the world. Professionals have used the term white pointer in preference to the more Hollywood promoted name.
The date of the following pictures is 13 November 1963.
Ron Taylor's much published 16mm film frames (blown up and used as a poster) were taken at Dangerous Reef, South Australia in March 1966.
The significance of the first underwater pictures of a white pointer went over the head of magazine and newspaper editors in 1963. One newspaper The Sun rejected the pictures for being "too grainy".
The same picture did get a run the next day in Sydney's The Daily Telegraph otherwise publication of this subject was neglected until 1966 when Everybody's magazine published a 2-page story (by me) outlining the behavioral differences between this species and others, including docile grey nurse sharks, until then called a supreme man-eater.
LIFE magazine began in Australia in 1967, the first issues were SHARK SPECIALS with the war in Vietnam in second place. One of my first white pointer pictures (not included here) was published full page in color.
Soon the shark baiting and special white pointer filming trips began in South Australia.
They were expensive at first - as much as US$10,000 per person for maybe ten days at sea.
The price kept me away. I've never participated in any of these ventures. For some weeks no sharks were being seen. Perhaps a dead whale elsewhere was keeping them occupied? Many disgruntled participants jumped to the extinction possibility - especially with nothing happening for days or at all, and a team of unhappy people aboard.
This was post JAWS (the movie) with sharks being suddenly more popular for their jaws as a souvenir. Perhaps all the white pointers have been killed became the jump to a conclusion. Perhaps they need protection?
More recently, feeding of attracted white pointer sharks has ceased - which indicates mistakes of the past in this self-regulated industry.
Something had to be wrong with those early methods where attracted sharks were teased to snap like crocodiles, heads above water, while baits on lines were pulled from in front of them.
Then the French underwater team went to Dangeous Reef with a huge budget for a film and a book and found few white pointers. When interviewed the explanation was the sharks are possibly becoming extinct.
"Bull-xxxx" thought a Queensland shark hunter of the time who then went to Cape Moreton (off Brisbane) with set lines and hooked several large white pointer sharks the following week to prove a point that plenty of these sharks existed if you knew their approximate traveling habits.
"The sharks migrate north following the humpback whales which we know give birth in warmer waters" was his explanation for the lack of sharks in South Australia.
The stunt may have back-fired. It possibly fueled the conservation movement to protect this species I believe.
This shark continues to be a well covered subject for documentary films and scientific research.
However in 1963 it was still a mystery subject which warranted little special attention outside of fishing and diving experts. All sharks were the same to most people. Few marine biology courses existed in universities and even less job opportunities existed for the graduates.
The only easily available white pointer information came from big game fishing books.
South Australian spear fishermen Brian Rodger (1962) followed by Rod Fox (1963) had memorable encounters and life threatening savage bites until Victorian Henri Bource (1964) had a leg bitten off while snorkeling with sea lions (fur seals) and lost 85% of his blood before a transfusion was eventually given.
Henri Bource filmed and produced a 90-minute feature length documentary Savage Shadows (1966) which detailed all sharks plus his own near death encounter.
Previously in 1965 Rod Fox appeared in a documentary which re-enacted (with still pictures) his own attack plus his subsequent return to the sea as a shark hunter. Today he runs a shark memorabilia museum and shark cage diving tours.
In the era of the sixties it was commonly considered crazy for a shark victim to go anywhere near the sea ever again - so great was the emotional impact of a shark bite.
Today 13 year old girls who suffer a complete loss of an arm, return to the sea and surf.
Everyone who has a shark bite, it seems becomes a scuba diver. It may be a good way of tackling the emotional problem and an almost guarantee of fame and fortune ahead?
Our education of sharks and their behavior has improved steadily, although documentaries I've seen to date are rarely, if ever, 100% perfect with the scripts.
There is no rule to cover all situations and all species of shark. The unpredictable rule will still apply, especially with wild sharks.
Many believe we have a long way to go for the perhaps never-ending discoveries ahead. While being very expensive (with satellite tracking etc) it should be most rewarding with knowledge and entertainment values.
These pictures were taken with a Calypso-Phot 35mm underwater camera using Agfa color film. The transparencies have had a tough life having been moved from house to various storage facilities and a couple of friends homes for about eight times in 40 years. A degree of color change was inevitable. (Also many cans of my 16mm film have suffered the same torture).
The young shark below measured between 8.5 and 9 feet in length and was 'dispatched' with a newly invented or devised 12 gauge shotgun power head on an eight-foot long hand spear. It was towed back to shore for pictures. One tooth was broken while lifting the shark with a rope through the mouth!
My father and I took turns posing with the shark to get the best possible photographic record as Dad was inexperienced in this field.
These pictures are the first underwater shots of a white pointer shark, possibly anywhere in the world. I'll update this point if evidence to the contrary ever appears.
PLAYING WITH SHARKS ....... Coralita at The Chesterfield Reefs
Richard Ibara PhD & Allan Murayama between film shots with JH
Arriving at these remote reefs the boat was surrounded by grey reef whaler sharks - at least a dozen on the surface. Normally it's unusual for sharks to do this - except at places where few boats go.
In this case we'd ventured into the French Pacific Territories in a quest for rare sea shells (by half of the crew). The others, including ourselves were just interested in having a good time.
My trip was sponsored by Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Also aboard was my father, John Michael Harding who is standing next to Roy Bisson and watching the action below.
Two medical doctors are either side. At one stage they took a blood transfusion kit aboard the small dinghy with Ron and Valerie Taylor - just in case. This gives an indication on how territorial these small sharks were.
It's more curiosity than aggression - in most but not all examples.
At another reef we experienced how territorial these whalers can be - almost enough to put you out of the water and go elsewhere.
My theory today is that sharks behave like this when divers are something new to them.
On the coast we are no longer a threatening novelty and sharks settle down to minding their own business. Eventually to become "trained" if food is regularly being offered.
These then are no longer wild sharks having become partially domesticated.
This is what dive tourism enjoys. Packaging cheap and relatively safe thrills to the the new breed of diving punters.
The rare, large traveling shark is a different proposition as we learned some years ago at Byron Bay. You can't do much to avoid one of these monsters if it's looking for a feed.
ADVENTURE DIVE BOAT ..... First into The Swain Reefs
Low tide at Ross Creek, Yeppoon, Queensland
Ron Taylor and Vic 'Snowie' Ley about to load gear, (August 1963) for a spearing and camping trip to Nor' West Island and surrounding reefs and islands. The Riversong was regularly being chartered by spear fishing clubs for weekend trip around the Keppel Islands offshore from Yeppoon.
Ron Zangari was the deckhand aboard Riversong when Sydney divers Ron Taylor & Ben Cropp wrote to him with an inquiry as to how they might get to the outer barrier reef.
The result was, Ron and Ben made two exciting trips aboard the Riversong with Wally Muller and Ron Zangari. They spear fished in The Swain Reefs - a very exciting unknown destination in 1961-62.
The tiger shark featured on the cover Ben's book shows Ron Zangari with the killer spear that penetrated the large shark easily.
The tiger was attracted to fish frames and skins being slowly dropped over the side as Wally filleted the day's catch. Film of the shark appears in the hit documentary The Shark Hunters. The film proved so popular when it was first shown on TV, it was repeated the following week.
The revolutionary killer spear was a conventional 3/8" shaft with a three-sided triangular point, like a needle. It was designed to paralyze sharks IF the spear touched the spine. Without barbs to hold the spear it would pull out if the shark was to swim away. Thus saving a lost or bent spear.
This was an experimental device demonstrated in their documentary. Underwater cinematography by Ron and featuring Ben as the star diver.
The spear was never commercially marketed, the shotgun powerhead was about to make tabloid headlines around the world as the first anti-shark device for shipwreck survivors and others.
(Like all weapons, it was prone to mis-use in subsequent years. It would be interesting to learn how many were commercially manufactured in Australia).
Wally was the Host Diver during more than one diver's convention at Heron. He'd take his own five meter boat from Sydney to Gladstone by trailer then motor it out to the island.
This enabled spearing on nearby Wistari Reef and others.
When the island kitchen was running low on seafood one morning they asked Wally to "spear them a few fish".
In his typical manner, Wal (with dive mate Warner Power) happily went to work with their spear guns.
Brown spotted cod and Queensland Groper seem to be the bulk of this catch. There'd be a few coral trout in that pile also. The large fish with Wally on the left is a Queensland Groper.
All forms of fishing were being encouraged at Great Barrier Reef tourist resorts then. Note that an air fill was costing about $16 in today's values. The 'fill' was to only 1800 psi (a law in Queensland), while 2400 psi in the other states.
Wally Muller was a friend of Bob Poulson, the resort owner in those days.
Already Wally had taken leading spear fishermen to The Swain Reefs aboard his Riversong where dramatic underwater pictures and films were made of a large tiger shark, plus tests on anti-shark devices.
Heron Island was then the best destination for divers. The underwater convention in November each year was popular.
Some believe this annual convention was discontinued after one especially wild party night which included celebrity guests.
That seems hard to believe. Divers are usually in bed much earlier than others. Ownership of the island lease has since changed hands several times since the Poulson family parted with it.
Roy Muller was very disappointed (to say the very least) when with his father, the purchase of a new charter boat collapsed with a great loss of personal and family money.
Roy then slid into a black hole of depression not much better than a real dark hole in the ground.
Where today Roy and his brother should have been proprietors of Australia's best fleet of charter boats, it shows that running a boating business is not short of pit-falls.
I was told, many years ago the now often quoted saying:
"Owning a boat is like taking a cold shower and ripping up hand fulls of $100 bills."
Alex Muller, note the hard work hands of a 15 year old
Wally Muller had two sons who were left ashore during their school years. Both were anxious to use scuba on trips with dad aboard Coralita.
Wally devised a simple rule to test their water ability. A test that all scuba instructors should have adopted. He said: "You can try diving on scuba when you can free dive ten meters deep".
Nobody should be allowed to dive on scuba until they pass this simple test.
Alexander Muller appeared in documentary films about sharks that were being made from aboard his father's charter boat. He received at least one credit in the titles of a Ron Taylor shark film.
Deckhand Richard Weir (who represented Australia in the World Spear Fishing Championships, Chili) was so impressed with Alex's fearless attitude toward sharks while spearfishing.
"He'd hold any struggling fish against his body and fight the sharks off with a speargun" said Richard, "he wasn't going to let any shark beat him to the catch".
(Remember how one 'famous' underwater naturalist confessed in an interview that 'he'd panicked at the sight of a white tip shark in shallow water blocking his return to shore'.
The sharks Alexander was fighting were Grey reef whalers - not the less dangerous (to unintentionally bite), white tip reef sharks.
At one time young Alexander was creeping up behind people and shouting "BOO". It was a stunt used so often that led to his nick name Boo still in use by his many friends and mates.
(It is also the name of a city in Sweden).
Another time Alexander had come aboard direct from three months work aboard a prawn trawler. His hands were badly knocked about from fish and prawn spines and other sharp objects. In terrible condition for a young man.
It didn't seem to both Alex in the least.
He was a tough kid then and it has never changed.
Some of his many adventures are quite amazing. Like his father before him, he is now a professional fisherman working out of Yeppoon, Queensland.
LAST DAYS OF CORALITA ...... World famous dive boat
Allen "Albie" Ziebell purchased Coralita from Wally Muller
In 1992 Coralita exploded and sank in Cairns. There was nobody aboard. Mystery surrounded the accident.
Albie was suspected of personally causing the loss. Two insurance company investigations cleared him.
It is believed recharging battery fumes (in the water-tight engine room) was ignited by a sparking electric bilge pump. BOOM. The sides and deck above were turned into splinters. The boat sank in 30 seconds.
During this final era with Coralita, Albie (a former pro abalone diver) ran a very slick dive boat. He mastered underwater photography in a matter of months, learning much from the guests who included the top international names. He used three motor drive Nikon's with strobes. Discovered schooling hammerhead sharks at Osprey Reef.
His future plan was bigger and better live-aboard dive boats.
Albie was on the eve of expanding the Coralita trips to include Papua New Guinea waters when the boat was lost.
(It wasn't the only serious problem the boat had. Previously a giant US Navy ship had crushed Coralita against the city wharf - splitting internal structural timbers and resulting in months of lost revenue that was poorly compensated for).
The sunken wreck was salvaged, sold for one thousand dollars and slowly rebuilt.
Today she operates under a new name from her original home port of Yeppoon.
(Left) Wally Muller brings a Spanish makerel aboardCoralita (Right) Riversong was the professional fishing boat that worked The Swains between 1948 - 1966.
In September 1964 Wally took Ron Taylor, Bob Grounds, Ron Zangari and I to The Coral Sea reef known as Saumarez - a hazardous voyage in a small vessel with no hope of rescue should a problem develop. Ron Taylor recorded the voyage in a 30 minute 16mm documentary.
Dive guides Kathy & Tony Tubbenhauer were Heron Island residents for many years
Later replaced by Walt and Jean Deas as the resident guide divers.
Everybody knew everybody in the early days. Founding owner of Heron Island was Bob Poulson a good friend to both Ron Isbell and Wally Muller.
Bob Poulson made the first underwater expedition to The Swain Reefs aboard his own vessel. It was documented in a Keith Gillett book written in a style that represented the perils and unknowns of that era.
A spear fishing champion and charter boat owner-captain, Ron Isbell launched Sea Hunt in 1968 from his home base at Gladstone, Queensland. It was some years before he installed an air compressor for scuba diving as the early divers were interested in free diving spear fishing.
As the popularity of scuba exploded Ron catered for both scuba and spearing - managing to keep both groups happy by taking them to separate sections of reef. Only possibly when very few boats are working an area.
His favorite area was the Capricorn and Bunker Group offshore between Gladstone and Bundaberg. In the early days this was the Great Barrier Reef. Cairns had not got off the ground with an international airport so anyone wishing to avoid the long trip north was sent to the southern section of the Great Barrier Reef.
I've always doubted that this section was a part of the GBR. It depends what you call THE Great Barrier Reef. For a start it is not a reef, it is thousands of separate reefs, so the name is incorrect for a start.
The 'Great Barrier Reefs' leave the coast further north and extend well offshore, the southern section being The Swain Reefs - a vast area where few tourists venture.
Inshore is the Capricorn and Bunker Group, the most beautiful islands and reefs of all, especially above water. These seem separate from the chain of reefs commonly called the Great Barrier Reef.
They are true coral sand islands with surrounding coral reefs. The vegetation on the islands is as good as it gets.
Underwater the corals are not as "lush" as those in the far north. Smaller formations and no giant clams. Otherwise, it takes an expert to know the difference.
When Wally Muller and Ed Hancock launched TSMV Coralita (a year after Ron Isbell launched his Sea Hunt) their plan was to run tourists on 5-day cruises through the Capricorn Group, with a stop at Heron Island.
Unfortunately the newly built Coralita "rolled" a lot, even in a calm sea. She was a good 'sea boat' when moving, not very stable when at anchor. Dinner plates slid off tables and coffee cups could only be 2/3 filled to prevent spilling.
So the planned tourist trips failed with many seasick passengers. Coralita then turned to the new sport of scuba diving. These proved perfect. The passengers were in the water all day when the boat was at anchor.
So Coralita was not built for especially scuba diving, she took a chance and began catering for it.
It was probably fortunate for both parties that Fathom magazine began and was able to promote both the boat and diving expeditions. Then Dewey Bergman of Sea and Sea Travel, San Francisco came to Australia to investigate. Coralita may have then become the world's first scuba diving live-aboard.
Ron Isbell was already ahead in this department, minus the air compressor.
Wally Muller; a chart by his hero Matthew Flinders R.N.
Wally Muller (1930 - 2005) has been mentioned extensively already in this blog.
There are still a few pictures that can help better illustrate this true modern day explorer of the coral country.
Wal's ocean exploits were all in an era when navigation was with sextant and radar. No GPS. Within The Swain Reefs he knew his way around better than anyone else.
(No one else commonly went to into the Swain Reef maze for a start).
One night on the radio some of his mates called him up. Hey Wal, we're anchored in a lagoon (in the Swains) with a couple of bommies at the entrance.... just wondering where you think we might be....?
Sound like Santuary Lagoon, Joe
Thanks Wal, now we know where we are we'll be right for a few days. Cervantes over and out.
Wal made his own chart of The Swain Reefs from years of professional fishing - motoring cautiously from one reef to a new reef every day during each 14-21 day fishing expedition.
They'd come home when their 2000 kg capacity freezer was full of fillets. Just two men aboard Riversong. This equals about 4000 kg of whole fish every trip as 55% of a coral trout is in the head and frame. With cod the recovery ratio is only 25%.
When the first aerial chart of this huge southern section of The Great Barrier Reef was mapped in 1964 by Gulf Oil Wally must have been awe struck.
Gulf Oil had charted his Riversong to help them with the survey.
A DC-3 did the photography during several months. It was a good income that paid better than fishing.
The aerial survey required three manned trig stations. One on a mountain top, another at Gannet Cay in the Swains, the third aboard Wal's boat. This enabled the aircraft to pin point where they were.
Wal must have been embarrassed at how he had imagined the shapes of reefs to be while he mapped the reef from a sea level perspective.
I asked what happened to his chart. "Lost" he claimed.
Maybe it was lost and is yet to be found again. Maybe he destroyed it, out of some imagined embarrassment.
In hindsight, it is this very distortion that would make this Lost chart of The Swain Reefs so valuable today.
A recent tribute was the official naming of a reef after Wally Muller.
Fifty years ago Wal was naming all of these reefs by himself.
Perhaps if that original chart existed today, additional original names may be recognized?
It would certainly be a solid argument in that direction.
Wally Muller, The Swain Reefs, Belgian Expedition 1967
Not many professional fishermen took up spearfishing. Wally excelled at it. His main quest was coral trout. Here a trevally gets the treatment. His favorite recipe for these fish was in a curry - which I hated eating at the time. Today it might be a different story.
In the Riversong era our dinner for five hard working men was: a tin of camp pie, a couple of onions, some potato and pumpkin all stewed together in a pressure cooker.
