HERON ISLAND ......... The Night Dive 1969
Possibly the most important picture I ever made. It changed my future for the next several years, or maybe forever.
Deepak Chopra teaches how to trace certain events back to a starting point.
I did so with this simple yet charming picture.
The 240V light belonged
Don McAlpine a cinematographer with the then Commonwealth Film Unit, now called
Film Australia. Don and I were working around the clock, diving every four hours through several days and nights.
Support boat was
Ron Isbell's Sea Hunt. We'd encountered a large hammerhead at Bloomfield Reef and filmed hatchling turtles racing for the ocean late at night on Heron Island. It was a sucessful trip.
Leading TV actor
Janet Kingsbury with her husband and film director, Bob Kingsbury were in charge.
Back in Sydney, a top magazine publisher saw the above picture some months later, (as a double page color proof for one of his magazines) we suggested "Why don't you do a diving magazine"?
Roy Bisson a skindiving art director had selected the above picture and was in the same room.
"Would you be the editor"? I was asked on the spot.
"Yes", I replied without thinking for more than a split second.
It was good timing. 48 pages - with 16 in colour. The best printing standard available in Hong Kong. Artwork would be air freighted across, magazines shipped back a few weeks later.
Quality far-exceeded anything available in Australia. First issue went on sale in newsagents in December 1970.
A year later we were at Hawaii and Californian underwater film festivals promoting the new product.
It didn't last much longer than a total of three years. Hundreds of people wrote to us in that time.
We organised Australian Underwater Film Festivals and Coral Sea dive trips aboard
Coralita - maybe the first live-aboard trips anywhere in the world.
American travel agents and other underwater cameramen followed our path to Marion and Saumarez Reefs chartering
Coralita with their own groups.
Feature films soon used these locations for unique grey reef whaler shark footage.
The early 1970's was a busy and exciting time for diving in Australia.
(The late) Philippe Cousteau visited to learn about our magazine plans and granted an interview - something he'd avoided elsewhere.
Walter Starck PhD came to Australia from Florida via the South Pacific Islands and New Guinea. Traveling aboard his
El Torito with Gerry Allen and family in 1972, to set-up a new diving and film making base - and stayed.
Colleagues John C Fairfax and Sandra Greentree joined the
El Torito for 18 months visiting Lord Howe Island, New Zealand and the Solomon Islands while filming documentaries. Wade Doak from New Zealand
DIVE magazine was part of the talented crew.
vortex on 27.07.07 @ 08:19 PM AEST [
The Night Dive 1969">link]
UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPH AT 25 METERS with flash 1991
Coral cave of the Northern Great Barrier Reef
fathom on 27.07.07 @ 07:15 PM AEST [
1991">link]
BOB WEBB ...... an inspiration to all who dive
Bob Webb spent 17 hours lost at sea. The strong current at Point Lookout swept Bob so far out to sea he lost sight of the lighthouse. When the tide turned, it brought him back toward land. He struggled ashore at 3AM several kilometers down the southern beach, found by fisherman
Peter Bristow.Bristow told me "the skin was worn down to the ankle bone from his swim fins/flippers".
Bob Webb had spent 17 hours in the sea at a time when the ocean off Point Lookout, North Stradbroke Island was alive with dangerous bull sharks - tigers and pointers. He did very well to survive the hazards. His diving partner was never seen again.
As I remember the story told local fishermen, the three were working from a 14 foot dive boat with a 40 HP outboard. They were spearing off Flat Rock using scuba. Two in the water, the other following their bubbles with the boat.
The outboard developed trouble and stopped. The boat lost sight of the divers. It was a windy morning with a chop on the surface making spotting the divers when and where they surfaced, impossible.
Eventually the stalled outboard started again. A search failed to find any trace of the two divers who, by this time had surfaced.
The divers remained together as the strong current swept them eastward - out to sea.
During the night they lost sight of each other. Bob Webb made it back to shore - his companion vanished.
I'd been diving once at Flat Rock and appreciated the hazards these guys faced. In those days there were lots of big sharks in those waters. Unlike sharks seen today these were not accustomed to divers and behaved quite different - more agitated.
This divers with the sea story has remained one of the great all-time survival stories. How valuable a wet suit, mask and snorkel can be.
Bob Webb later opened a boat and marine shop near Brisbane. I met him just once, many years ago. He would have many fascinating stories of his life around the sea.
Several weeks after his well publicized ordeal, a similar event occurred nearby off Cape Moreton.
It was later learned to be a hoax.
The diver involved did not do sufficient research to back the claim he'd been swept out to sea and survived a similar long swim.
The tide was incoming when he claimed to have been swept out to sea.Soon after, a law was introduced by the State government enabling search costs to be charged in future.
vortex on 27.07.07 @ 02:50 PM AEST [
an inspiration to all who dive">link]
LITTLE SEAL ROCK ...... adult female grey nurse shark
This big shark and all the smaller grey nurse in the school resting at Little Seal Rock (NSW) were easily spooked when Jocelyn dropped in on them from above.
Details were in last month's notes. I couldn't locate this picture at the time.
Our dive illustrated how this species avoids divers - at first.
In time they would possibly settle down and accept our presence. Maybe. Some people believe grey nurse sharks get annoyed by many dive visits and move to deeper water.
People are spun the line "these sharks are almost extinct - there are less than 500 of them left".
My 16mm film taken at the time with a motor drive camera is a good record of how a
grey nurse shark school avoided a single diver swimming amongst them, by bolting for deeper water.
This original footage has not been cut. It remains a good example to show how easy for just two divers to spook about 20 sharks
.
fathom on 27.07.07 @ 12:25 AM AEST [
adult female grey nurse shark">link]
