WALLY MULLER 1930 - 2005
Captain Wally Muller 21 May 1930 - 18 May 2005When he launched
Coralita in 1969 with partner Ed Hancock, the plan was a regular weekly cruise through the Capricorn and Bunker Group - around Heron and Lady Musgrave Islands. After a few trips and a lot of seasick passengers the plan was scrapped in favour of fishing and scuba dive extended charters.
The 79 foot Coralita was Captain Wally Muller's third and final vessel. By keeping the boat under 80 feet in length he was able to operate without an engineer being aboard. Later a more strict Commonwealth Survey allowed international charters.
This was in the early era of scuba diving travel. The Red Sea and Truk Lagoon were yet to see sleep-aboard or live-aboard dive boats, Wally Muller was the pioneer, encouraged by Dewey Bergman of the San Francisco travel agency, Sea and See.
Wally's nautical career began as a professional hand-line fisherman based at Yeppoon, then a sleepy central Queensland seaside village back in the 1950's, his home port for
Riversong. Later to become a part-time spearmen's adventure boat.
Wally's method of operation. Just himself and a deckhand would handline reef fish until they filled the freezer with 4000 pounds of mostly coral trout and red throat sweetlip fillets, both A grade species, then return to port. The round trip taking between two and three weeks. If seriously bad weather were encountered (preventing a return homeafter just a few days fishing) - the entire catch might be dumped so that a fresher haul could be caught and returned to port. Such was the population of reef fish during the 1950's and 1960's.
Fifty tonnes of whole fish per year for twenty years. One thousand tonnes of fish caught by a single small fishing boat working virgin Great Barrier Reef. Scientists today researching coral trout density numbers dispute such figures as ever having been possible, and use a different yardstick post spearfishing era.
Gradually Wally and
Riversong explored The Swain Reefs - the largest mass of unchartered territory in the southern GBR. Few other fishermen ventured into this maze of reef located between 120 and 180 nautical miles offshore. Wally made his own chart of this territory which was
lost soon after the first satellite charts became available. An incredible document if it existed today.
Most boat captains were nerveous of being involved with spearfsihermen, (shark paranoia). Wally Muller took calculated risks. With crew members Ron Zangari, and visitors Ron Taylor and Ben Cropp the team became the first spearmen in uw expeditions to the Swain Reefs 1961-62.
We divers speared coral trout in exchange for
the trip, later an incentive of 6d per pound (fillets) was paid. I shared such a reward in 1964-5 during spearfishing voyages in the Capricorn and Bunker Group, and The Swains and Saumarez Reef. Champion spearmen
Brian Rodger (Adelaide) and
Bob Grounds (Sydney) joined the crew led by
Ron Taylor (in practice for his World Spearfishing Championship win in Tahiti 1965. Ron was later to denounce spearfishing and especially the waste of inedible fish caught in competitions and retired from the sport in 1967).
During one Swain Reefs expedition they caught, shot with a revolver and photographed a ten foot tiger shark, later speared with the needle sharp and barbless
killer spear, then an experimental anti-shark defense-attack device. Pictures of this large tiger with Ron Zangari were stunning and became published world-wide including the cover for Ben's book
The Shark Hunters.Wally Muller took
Riversong to remote Saumarez Reef in 1964 with a similar crew including Ron Taylor making a 30 minute 16mm film while freediving. It was a rather perilous or risky voyage in an era when weather forcasting was more guesswork. We left in late September, a few months ahead of the cyclone season - but no guarantee one would not catch us.
Careelah (since renamed
Peal Bay) was a larger vessel and capable of safely withstanding rougher conditions, but a cyclone in the Swain Reefs once blew away much of the ship's paint. The boat was saved by Wally running her aground at low tide on the gamble that by high tide the storm would have passed and he'd be able to her float free. Sections of the anchor chain were fused into straight lengths by stretching.
TSMV Coralita was a twin screw timber constructed 79 foot dive boat designed and built by Norman R. Wright shipyards in Brisbane. The worlds' first sleep-aboard which allowed exploring of remote and exotic world-class Coral Sea reefs largely uneconomical to reach today. Marion Reef was said to rival the best of The Red Sea.
Like a modern-day Matthew Flinders, Wally Muller explored all of these in Australian territory and the Chesterfield Reefs in French territory where he collected rare
volute thatcheri sea shells and was subsequently threatened by French authorities with arrest if he returned without prior permission.
More extended diving charters took Coralita to New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, New Guinea and later corporate charters to the Celebes - where pirates were a serious concern.
Another corporate project was for the Ok Tedi mining company up The Fly River in New Guinea - passing wreckage of boats grounded by tidal bores (three meter waves from tropical downpours than suddenly appear on an otherwise calm river ).
Wally Muller and
Coralita helped the careers of many underwater cameramen during shark filming expeditions. International dive companies had almost booked-out Coralita during the late 1970's beginning with Sea and See, then Bay Travel and later La Mer Diving Safari.
Marine photographers Irvin Rockman, Al Giddings (Titanic; The Deep) Jack McKenney (Sharks Treasure), Ron Taylor (Taylor's Innerspace and many others) made use of Wally's expertise in visiting remote, clear water shark habitats.
Prime Ministers of Australia and Canada dived from
Coralita as she was then biggest, safest and most comfortable.
But it was not always smooth sailing. Eventually a combination of boredom and rum consumption caught up with Wally and the charter trips saw regular costly incidents aboard. Some could have ended worse than what they did.
Running aground on bommies became frequent (without substaining serious damage - apart from busted props), or once, more seriously, leaving four divers waist-deep on a reef for hours pre-dusk (when they had slipped back for a snorkel swim without telling him.
Coralia had up-anchored and moved to the intended anchorage for the night some kilometers away).
These were the pioneer days of scuba dive charters preceding today's stricter regulations and head counts in the past Port Douglas incident highlighted by a feature film titled
Open Water.Wally's system was to count the scuba tanks aboard rather than the people aboard. Usually it worked, but was far from fool-proof.
My friend Vic Ley averted a mutiny aboard when disgruntled wealthy passengers threatened to take control of the ship following several obvious mishaps in the Coral Sea from an apparent drunk skipper.
Had they known the skipper kept a licensed .38 revolver in his cabin they may have had other thoughts. Vic Ley calmed the anxious people with his physical appearance and prevented
the mob getting out of control.
Although in the last years of his charter business, Wally consumed rum while on the 24 hour a day job, a long-term friend made the point he would still trust Wally to be able to perform his duties well, even while partially intoxicated. Work aboard a charter boat is where skills can become an automatic function. But the smell of alcohol on the captain's breath would not be very well received by all.
Unlocking Valerie Taylor's cabin with a master key for a dozen or more chanting and alcohol-effected passengers (myself included - but not physicly) who sought her turn to be thrown overboard after dinner in Middleton Reef lagoon, did not earn any long-term points from Valerie.
She sustained a seriously ruptured ear drum requiring specialised surgery overseas on the eve of her lengthy underwater filming project for the
Innerspace TV series, requiring delay by nine months.
A description of the first operation, without anesthetics, is horrific.
Pain like 1000 bee's stinging the inside of the ear all at once. I saw divers entering and exiting the water who were subjected to sharks taking live struggling fish from fishing lines when one or more charters contained several fishermen. An unimaginable scenario today, but not as serious as it may sound.
Wally's major near-miss was a back-firing .303 propelled spear which smashed his face mask entered 5cm into his face below an eye and almost killed him. I also saw a powerful scuba air compressor hose burst in his face and pepper him with micro schrapnel - fortunately he had begun wearing reading glasses which protected his eyes.
Other adventures saw
Coralita sailing to an erupting undersea volcano in the Solomon Islands with great lumps of lava raining down around and beyond the ship. Wally Muller's own photograph of this was later published in a National Geographic Magazine.
There are many stories that could fill volumes. Wally Muller was a significant and a major part of modern Great Barrier Reef exploration and history.
We have many adventures to thank him for and will remember him as a true Australian pioneer adventurer difficult to equal.
Coralita was sold and Wally went into a fruit orchard and later oyster harvesting business. A bad venture into another boat cost him dearly and finally he retired away from the sea he loved at Yeppoon, central coast of Queensland. He is survived by sons Roy and Alexander and two grandsons.
JH on 20.05.05 @ 09:46 AM AEST [
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