LEGENDS SURF MUSEUM ......fountain of eternal youth?

How many great-grandfathers have a surf wagon like this?
Scott Dillon (above left) and Dick Hoole have tapped into a fountain of youth with surfing.

Scott has a colorful career where he has excelled at amateur boxing, car racing, spear fishing and especially long board surfing.

Now in his mid seventies, he entertains visitors to his museum with a light-hearted adventure stories and an attitude to life that is unique and ageless with words sounding like they were coming from a thirty-something year-old surfer.

He was virtually born on the beach at Bondi – established one of the first surfboard factories at Brookvale and now the noted Legends Surf Museum 7km north of Coffs Harbour, on the mid north coast of New South Wales.

When veteran diver and shark hunter Wally Gibbins met with Scott last year to discuss the expansion of shark memorabilia at the museum, we were amazed to learn that Scott had started spear fishing two years before this other legend of the underwater world.

Scott had spear fished commercially in Ceylon in the 1950’s for two years and began well before that with friends Don Linklater, "Gelignite" Jack Murray and Andy Armstrong, all Bondi larrikins at the time.

Dick Hoole produces-distributes quality surf movies and memorabilia from his north coast base which commands one of the best panoramic views from the plateau overlooking Byron Bay and Brunswick Heads. His association with cameraman Jack McCoy has been very fruitful for both with a stream of hit surf movies.

Visitors to the surf museum Kim and Sarah (pictured below) lead surf tours between Sydney and Byron Bay each week and often make the surf museum a must-see for their young overseas visitors learing to surf in 5-day tours culminating with a party at Byron Bay on the last night. Usually it's a party every night on the tour up the coast.

The back packers sleep in tents and cabins, eat from BBQ’s and pizza’s in a non stop fun-filled safari so entertaining and affordable that one Canadian girl went eight times, “With meals and accommodation provided, the $300 (approx.) per week was cheaper than living in the city and you get to meet heaps of new people” she told Scott.



JH on 29.09.06 @ 10:13 AM AEST [fountain of eternal youth?">link]

Legends Surf Museum ....... Kim and Sarah visit

JH on 29.09.06 @ 10:04 AM AEST [Kim and Sarah visit">link]

Legends Surf Museum (continued) .. Scott Dillon shapes a board

Visitors to Legends Surf Museum have a window into how a surfboard is made. Admission $5 includes live commentary by Scott Dillon in person.




JH on 29.09.06 @ 09:59 AM AEST [Scott Dillon shapes a board">link]

PORT DOUGLAS .......tourist boat; JH & Ben Cropp

Port Douglas is a departure point for day trips to 'the reef'. (top picture).

John Harding and Ben Cropp doing a brisk morning beach walk at Port Douglas where Ben lives. (below).

Ben Cropp is a regular visitor at lonely Batt Reef and has devised ingenius methods for filming sharks, rays, turtles and dugong in shallow conditions out there.

Our encounter with the very cranky shark (that chewed Ben's inflateable dinghy to shreds) also accured at Batt Reef. Those details in our archives 29 September 2004.

Originally thought to be a three meter tiger shark it now seems to have been a much rarer lemon shark.

A positive ID is yet to be made from the pictures, a scientific shark researcher states: it was not a tiger shark. Lemon sharks dont enjoy being followed by boats.








JH on 28.09.06 @ 05:59 PM AEST [tourist boat; JH & Ben Cropp">link]

LARGE STINGRAY ........ Batt Reef, North Queensland

Stingray gliding over the shallows of the reef that made world headlines.

Batt Reef is a big sandy area, very shallow on the top and with small patches of coral and weed. This is offshore from tourist centre of Port Douglas and Low Isles.

This reef is home to hundreds, even thousands of large stingrays, some turtles and dugong and numerous tiger, lemon and nurse sharks.

In recent weeks this reef has been inundated by news cameramen seeking the stingray with a broken barb that Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin encountered here.

The large stingray in the upper frame was quite tame (from a distance) – a point which may have deceived Steve into wrongly considering these were not potentially dangerous.

Swimming above a large ray in shallow water is not something a long-term experienced diver would contemplate.

The lower frame shows the mainland in the distance and illustrates how most of this reef is sandy and shallow. It has not been visited by tour groups.



JH on 28.09.06 @ 04:26 PM AEST [Batt Reef, North Queensland">link]

UNUSUAL FISH ......from the world of intense pressure.

Caught in deep water off Coffs Harbour this week, the common name Black Snapper.The first I've ever seen. The scales have a thin white outline. Big eyes for seeing in the deep dark waters, and the black color would help it hide.

Not a friendly fish - if you happened to be a sardine-sized thing swimming by.


JH on 19.09.06 @ 04:10 PM AEST [from the world of intense pressure.">link]

FATHOM ARTWORK ......... never published

Roy Bisson was fathom magazine’s talented Art Director in the era when the two of us worked together under the guidance of Gareth Powell, a genius publisher with several other publications showcasing photography, travel, food, motor cycles and more.

Roy Bisson selected my efforts as underwater photographer, writer and advertising salesman and advertising copywriter.

Roy as an artist had much authority over how space a story warranted.

This was a double-edged sword. It made work easy for me.

I did not always agree with the choice of pictures selected but always left the final decision with the Art Director.

In some cases a strong story was reduced to less pages than what I preferred.

Rarely did a story stretch into more space than was justified. Roy kept the action tight.

It did happen once. I was spending a lot of time traveling aboard the private research vessel El Torito.

Walter Starck and I were making a film off the coast of New Guinea. The story of this expedition was published in issue Number 9 and given a bit too much non-diving cultural space.

There was no publishing deadline. Editions went to press whenever they were ready with artwork and importantly sufficient advertising - which was never a problem. A luxury few magazines have enjoyed.

For our proposed sharks ID guide that was to appear in the fathom annual, a planned yearbook that never eventuated beyond about 50 pages of artwork.

Inspired by Sharks and Other Predatory Fish by Peter Goadby, (a big game fishing writer) whose tiny but wonderful handbook with line drawings of all the main shark species taught me the simple formulae for identifying the main group of sharks.

The tail and dorsal fin differences between white pointer, grey nurse and the whaler sharks (now commonly called bull sharks). All very elementary stuff now but years ago it was cutting edge knowledge

Incredible, but proof of progress with general understandings of shark ID.



JH on 18.09.06 @ 12:18 PM AEST [never published">link]

INFLATEABLE BOAT ....... wreckage

Rubber inflateable boats don't last as well as aluminium dinghies.

This one washed ashore on a northern Great Barrier Reef island and was found wrecked last year.




JH on 12.09.06 @ 12:32 PM AEST [wreckage">link]

STINGRAY SPINE ..... in graphic detail

The broken-off stingray spine (at left) is 20cm in length. This is what killed The Crocodile Hunter in that serious error of judgement last week at Batt Reef, off Port Douglas.

The school of large sleeping stingrays was found elsewhere in 30 meters of water, a safe depth to keep some distance between yourself and them.

One ray is already beginning to lift it's tail "in preparation", should the diver get within striking range it would probably use it.

The diver was Dianne Widdowson she knew not approach any closer than this. Steve Irwin swam above a similar sized creature in only 1.5 meters of depth.

The single spine is at the base of the tail not the tip and does not inject venom although it has grooves to prevent it 'sticking'.

Spines are coated with toxic slime that produces an instant and severe pain followed by serious infection if not cleaned completely away.

The Crocodile Hunter was not a long term experienced diver, but was doing his best.

Hi John,

A long-time editor of a leading Australian dive magazine, and a lifetime's experience diving and filming off Australia and Pacific islands, make you a top world authority on marine behaviour. Thank you for putting it all in perspective. It's a shame we lost such a gutsy Aussie, but even in death Steve was still teaching us. Ben M.



JH on 09.09.06 @ 02:29 PM AEST [in graphic detail">link]

JH on 08.09.06 @ 10:11 AM AEST [link]

DRIED SHARK FINS ........ and a few sets of jaws

JH on 08.09.06 @ 10:08 AM AEST [and a few sets of jaws">link]

TAKE HOME ....... budget shark fin soup

In a Taipei alley, shark fin soup for sale.




JH on 08.09.06 @ 10:06 AM AEST [budget shark fin soup">link]

SHARK FIN SOUP ....... bad news for future

Menu at Broadbeach, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

Until recently, shark fin sales had been dominated by the wealthy of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei and Japan.

That is changing with mainland China’s new found wealth. There will be over one billion people who will, at some time in the lives, wish to try this prestige dish.

They now have the wealth and shark fin soup is a traditional Chinese method to show off wealth.

Shark fin soup starts as a gloopy, almost tasteless gelatinous concoction which is given flavor by the addition of chicken stock.

The soup has always been the highlight of business lunches and wedding banquets.

Prized for its high value, (the premium fins cost US$1 a gram dry). At US$100 per bowl for soup it’s a status symbol that confers prestige on the host.

If they don't offer shark fin soup at an important business lunch, the deal may not proceed.

China is said to be unstoppable, (fun-raising) environmentalists warn.

"With its new wealth and 1.3 billion people all are going to want to share this so-called prize food that others have had in the past", was one quote recently.

It would seem bad news for the future of many sharks. But there is a solution in the clever city of Taipei, Taiwan where many idea's originate.

Fake shark fin soup is already being sold and is also more affordable so perhaps this will be the solution? But will be be good enough to satisfy those prestige businessmen's lunches?







JH on 08.09.06 @ 08:59 AM AEST [bad news for future">link]

The Oz page 4 today


Filming slightly risky stunts underwater has been a profession of mine and other friends.

We were (in 1975) part of the film crew when Jaws author Peter Benchley was dangerously close to two large sharks chewing on a stingray bait. (I was out of the water changing film when he slipped to within a meter of the flashing teeth).

The chief cameraman filmed this incident much to the awe of three Australian divers hovering mid-water ten meters above.

Benchley could have become an accident victim just as Steve Irwin was this week. Peter Benchley was a raw novice diver so close to becoming a shark victim himself.

Imagine the headlines, Jaws author shark attack.

It was so close to becoming fact – but fortunately for all concerned didn’t happen.

By the time I returned underwater from changing film aboard the chartered boat, the main danger had passed.

I noted Peter Benchley’s face mask was now so badly fogged he would not have seen much at all.

Probably didn’t fully realize the degree of danger he had just been in.

So I showed Benchley how to clear his fogged mask underwater by allowing a cupful of water in, washing the inside and then blowing air through his nose to expel the water.

He followed and was most grateful. On the bow of the charter boat that night, he thanked me again as we talked about his marketing of Jaws the book into Jaws the movie.

Fast forward to events this week.

If for example, I were filming someone as they approached a large sleeping ray, would I or could I warn them not to swim above it? You'd try to do something positive if time permitted.

Things happen fast, communications are different underwater and possibly I would assume they would know better and not get too dangerously close anyway.

Steve may have studied and viewed footage of more tame stingrays elsewhere and assumed all were going to be the same?

(One of the many reasons why marine parks authority dislikes any uncontrolled feeding of marine creatures anywhere).

Feeding changes the natural disposition, and in places like Batt Reef where wild rays are very prevalent, a hazard is created when some may wrongly assume rays to be the same everywhere.

Steve Irwin was not such a great expert underwater. He was a good performer with land animals but not a man with any incredible underwater experience.

It takes many years of experience to have a broad safety view.

That’s obvious as a real marine expert would not position themselves above a stingray in such shallow conditions. A big ray and just 1.5 meters of depth. No way! But Steve was action man and that changes everything, but he was out of his depth in very shallow water.

From a technical and news camera view, filming Australia’s most famous animal wrangler being fatally injured, is both tragic and a video-journalist milestone at the same time.

Nothing like this has happened before. There have been injuries filmed, but never the highest profile celebrity of an era fatally injured underwater in front of the camera.

Many divers would like to view the footage of this accident – footage “that will never see the light of day” according to Steve’s manager. Why?

Surely any gruesome moments can be made blurred – we all can be spared those.

It’s the wider details of this incident that would instruct many how to be more professional and cautious if underwater and near these large rays.

Stingrays are suddenly the new curio that will see more of them approached with camera's than ever before. The window of opportunity for similar accidents has been opened.

We therefore need to view footage of what happened, even if only in an animation form at least.

This might help and protect others underwater in future as a warning how to behave near big rays.





JH on 07.09.06 @ 12:14 PM AEST [link]

STEVE IRWIN ............The Crocodile Hunter (cont.)

John Harding, Peter West, Dale Chapman, Ben Cropp

Peter West was Steve Irwin's 2nd cinematographer at Batt Reef and was somewhere nearby when the accident happened, his first day of work at sea with The Crocodile Hunter.

"There was no blood in the water, it was not that obvious, " says boat owner Peter West, who viewed the footage afterwards, according to The Oz. "Something happened with this animal that made it rear and he was at the wrong position at the wrong time and if it hit him anywhere else we would not be talking about a fatality."


EXPERT COMMENT - SEPT 8 2006

"I would certainly like to see the footage. The Ray must have thought it was being attacked. And, as you know, you have to be very close to a Ray for it to strike you.


If Steve jumped on the back of the Ray like he dose (sic) with crocs, that would explain it.

There are some serious questions to be answered. Who was the dive supervisor? Who was the safety diver? Who was the person advising Steve on the dangers of marine creatures? Experienced divers know not to swim close over the top of a big Ray. Who told Steve not to do that, and why not to do it?


From my understanding, Steve was not a long time experienced diver. Someone, other than Steve, is responsible for his death.


They (those closely involved) are certainly tight lipped in Cairns."

(Name provided)

How the news was announced

Steve Irwin killed by stingray
September 04, 2006 12:00 noon

STEVE Irwin rose in a cloud of blood -- the cameras still rolling -- before his crew realised he had been fatally speared through the heart by the barb of a stingray.

The Australian television star, 44, yesterday died of cardiac arrest after being stabbed off Port Douglas about 11am.

Irwin was being filmed for his eight-year-old daughter Bindi's new TV show as he snorkeled in shallow water when a normally placid bull ray lashed out.

"It was a very unfortunate accident the way it happened -- he just swam over the top of the ray and the barb came up and hit him," said close friend and documentary maker John Stainton.

"The stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart.

"The cameraman said at the time he didn't know that it even hit him until he saw blood in the water and then he knew there was a problem."

He was pulled from the water alive, taken to a nearby boat and could clearly be seen in distress.

Crew members on Irwin's boat Croc One administered CPR and called for helicopter rescue -- but he was dead before help arrived.

Mr Stainton said he and Irwin were in north Queensland to film a new documentary called Ocean's Deadliest for American TV.

He said Irwin was "like a caged lion" when poor weather postponed filming on the reef so he decided to capture stingray footage at Batt Reef for Bindi's television show, which was due to be picked up by networks around the world.

Batt Reef is inhabited by hundreds of tiger sharks and stingrays, which laze in a vast shallow area with a sandy bottom.

Legendary underwater filmmaker Ben Cropp, who has filmed several documentaries with stingrays, said he believed the animal must have been spooked.

"He was swimming along with a ray and there was a camera man in front doing the filming and he was probably getting a little bit too close to the ray," Mr Cropp said from his Port Douglas home.



JH on 06.09.06 @ 08:24 AM AEST [The Crocodile Hunter (cont.)">more..]

BATT REEF .......... Stingrays - worse than sharks?

above Calm day at Batt Reef centre and bottom Tiger shark feeds on large stingray underwater at the same reef.

Batt Reef 27 km offshore from North Queensland’s Port Douglas is a huge, shallow and sandy reef with small patches of coral.

It’s not a live coral reef like that at Low Isles which is closer inshore and visited by thousands of day trippers every week.

Batt Reef is a submerged and shallow reef where you’d be lucky to find a depth greater two meters covering much of the top mass as shown on a nautical chart.

This shallow, sandy water is a haven for stingrays, mostly adults about 1.5 meters or more in width which seek plentiful mollusks (or sea shells) hidden under the sand.

In turn tiger sharks follow unsuspecting and sleeping stingrays for their main source of food.

Snorkeling for movie-making in these shallow conditions makes it more difficult to avoid an injury from a stingray (as compared with scuba diving in deeper conditions) as there is less room to move away from them.

Visibility out there is never brilliant which means getting in close to your subjects. Not such a good idea at all but necessary to work with cameras there.

Snorkeling over a large stingray would be a mistake - it may suddenly raise it’s tail - (with the 20 cm long dagger-like barb located where the tail is attached to the body, not at the tip of the tail) to inflicted a defensive injury. It would happen in a split-second then the ray would be gone.


In the Bahamas where a stingrays colony is fed for tourist divers, an unnatural situation has been created. Is this a good or a bad thing? To think all stingrays are the same would be a serious error of judgement.

Similarly in aquariums, sharks, rays and large fish are more docile to those in the wild.

At Batt Reef no inadvertent regular offerings with food to sharks and rays has been happening, apart from irregular shark filming. That may change.

This is not an attractive underwater destination for masses of people wanting a beautiful hard coral reef. Batt Reef is a place of solitude and quiet natural beauty without crowds that crawl all over nearby islands for a few hours, but every day.

Question: Will this new high profile, fatal accident (yesterday) suddenly put Batt Reef on a commercial tour chart?


Other stingray info:

Anthony Newley (founder of Scuba Diver magazine) was killed by a stingray when it severed his femoral artery. This happened in Fiji after Anthony had left the magazine in the mid 1980’s.

One of the world experts with sharks and stingrays is Frank J. Schwartz (Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina USA) who said privately to me on 16 May 2002 in Taipei, Taiwan (on the subject of stingrays):

“I was appalled by a major magazine, and wrote and told them so”.

He was referring to a published Stingray City picture story, showing the first diving and feeding of large stingrays with close-up pictures in the shallows of the Bahamas. “These creatures can kill a person”, he reminded me.

People expect all stingrays to be as placid as these that are fed daily by divers, such as in the Bahamas which was not the case at Batt Reef yesterday.

To assume these wild rays would be as docile as those in aquariums or at daily feeding sites is a fatal mistake, to state the least.

Many are saying “.....at least Steve Irwin died doing what he enjoyed”.

Not as good as it may seem. The pain inflicted by the mucus on a stingray spine is (said to be) the most agonizing of any marine sting.

Morphine injections have little numbing effect, people have said after two or even more injections.

The sheath covering the spine breaks into sections and remains in the wound to later cause severe infection if not scrubbed away.

Whatever way you look at it, all stingrays are best studied from a distance.

(Any previous) promoting of stingrays as docile and gentle .....is a little like allowing a child to play with a very sharp knife. A serious mistake.

You can bet the previously neglected stingray has just acquired a new high profile status within the global footprint of documentary TV.











JH on 05.09.06 @ 05:36 AM AEST [ Stingrays - worse than sharks? ">link]