Port Hole from a trawler ......and our fear of the unknown.

THE FEAR OF SHARKS can be extreme to some people. A sinking trawler with a terrified skipper who prefered drowning to be eaten by sharks.

The terrified seaman wrote a note to a friend whom he owed $100, included the money with the note and put it in a corked bottle which he threw into the sea, adding there were so many sharks around his boat, 'he was going down with the sinking vessel, rather than take his chances in the sea that night'.

Dean Cropp salvaged this brass port hole from the sunken remains of the prawn trawler in 25 meters, much of it mud or at least silt. As the prawn nets drag across the muddy ocean floor of North Queensland, they stir up the bottom so that about seven meters has very low visibility. Dean groped around in the murk and earned a rather nice prize, a prize which all divers would treasure.

Was this the same trawler with the terrified skipper? Maybe. The fear of the unknown is very real. Conquering our personal FOTU is a challenge of the sea we all must face.

JH on 31.10.04 @ 10:18 AM AEST [link]

Tawney Shark in the Shallows ....also called a Nurse Shark.

As learner to the crystal seas we all wrongly believed sharks would not bother us in shallow water. Today we realise that a shark in shallow water is more of a hazard than in deeper water where there is at least more room to manoeuvre around each other.

This tawney/nurse shark will give any learner a big fright but nothing else. It's good to be able to ID any shark then you can mostly relax. Surprisingly, some dive experts I've known are not too bright at getting it correct, even with white pointers, but this was in the old era pre pay TV.

Dorsal fins are an easy ID to memorise. The species pictured above has two dorsal fins nearer the tail, as does a grey nurse. It's an easy way to ID both these low hazard level sharks. But beware the twin dorsals belonging to the dreaded LEMON SHARK. A cranky shark at the best of times.


JH on 29.10.04 @ 08:54 AM AEST [link]

Tiger Shark ...........'Three meters of recycled sea food'.

See other entries from September 29 2004 for details re this confident but wary species.
Photo: JH/fathom
JH on 28.10.04 @ 02:33 PM AEST [link]

Coral Mix ............

Original pics:John H. 2004
JH on 28.10.04 @ 02:06 PM AEST [link]

Ron Taylor's SHARK FIGHTERS film ................ movie poster 1965

FORTY YEARS AGO Sharks on film were a rare event and Australia led the world in this respect. USA caught up during the 1970's. The Shark Fighters programme ran for months in South Africa. In Australia it had a 30 day season in a Sydney theatre. This is the only surviving copy (orange version) of the 'over-print' poster, value unknown.

Shark Fighters was shown at venues known for surf films, i.e. older suburban cinemas struggling to stay in business, some with 1000 seats which were mostly empty except when a surf film screened.

Advertised via teen-radio announcers (Ward Pally Austin on 2UW) and with posters like this plastered all over the city, the surf and shark films were a cultural delight.

Hawaiian shirts worn by almost everyone - the forerunner of beach culture fashion. Bleached hair, white jeans were the uniform of surf addicts. Supporting films included old cartoons, war newsreels - which brought howls of laughter from the growing group of soon-to-be anti-Vietnam war protesters.

Shark films attracted both the surfers and the general public. Divers were a minority. The true potential never fully exploited, we distributors being too lazy for that. 'Better things to do'.

Conventional 35mm movie distribution did not work profitably- you had to do it yourself in 16mm or not at all. The most successful 16mm film of all featured crocodiles. While surf films were more numerous than features like the above, the undersea titles were timeless and were distributed for years.

Queensland audiences, especially, were patriotic and huge when Great Barrier Reef content was exhibited via 16mm but by law only in licensed cinemas, huge single screen venues which were packed by schools by day and families by night, made possible by affordable TV advertising.

Narration for Shark Fighters came via three now infamous voices. American stage actor Hayes Gordon, TCN9 news anchor Chuck Faulkner, and 2UW disc jockey Ward Austin (who had the Aussie accent of the future in an era then dominated by British culture - seems more incredible today).
fathom (TM) printed matter collection

SHARK AIR PATROL

We were invited aboard the New South Wales north coast shark patrol aircraft to do a live interview about sharks. We were the experts doubling as film promoters during the January holidays in 1968.

Our film show would be held at the town cinema (which no longer exists) tonight at 8pm, a local radio station arranged for us to go up in their Cessna which was patrolling the beaches north and south.

At the airport we waited for the Cessna to pick us up. When it touched down and taxied
over, up drove a limo with a businessman who turned out to be a sponsor of the shark patrol aircraft and he was also selling real estate – a beach development nearby.

His complaint to the pilot was more of an instruction. “Don’t report any more sharks – I’m trying to sell land and you’re driving buyers away spotting these f------- sharks”.

So up we went in the aircraft to spot sharks but not report seeing them.

“It’s a nice day up here in the (radio station) aircraft with Mike Perry and John Harding who are in town to show the film Ron Taylor’s Shark Fighters at the (town’s name) Theatre, tonight – do you see any sharks down there, boys?”

“No, there’s no sharks in the surf today but there’s plenty of them in Ron Taylor’s Shark Fighters films tonight at the (town’s name) theatre at 8pm”.

We had a full house that night, about 600 people. It was the best single screening we had between Noosa Heads and Wooli. We also checked-out the surf at Fraser Island with an aircraft ride over the island and while walking around Hervey Bay were surprised to see a local rock band with the same name as the film we were showing The Sharkfighters.

A poster for our shows is above.





JH on 27.10.04 @ 07:53 AM AEST [link]

No Endangered Species .......blubber-lip

On this coral reef off Cooktown, one fish is left alone. Everything else is gone. All the coral trout, sweetlip, cod and wrasse - gone. The 'blubber-lip' has the place to himself. Not a fast swimmer, an easy target too. The big fellow (pictured above) is shown, relaxed and feeding; he swallows mouthfulls of sand which pass out the gills. Somehow whatever is worth eating is retained - clever. Whatever, it has an effect on the flesh. This fish is not worth catching, spearing or cooking.
John H/Aust.Seafari Pty Ltd

JH on 26.10.04 @ 09:02 AM AEST [link]

Fish Tail ..........magnified 4X

Here is more proof of the wonderful and tiny world hidden within the sea. A tropical fish at Batt Reef offPort Douglas, Qld. October 2004 (4X life-size).
Photo: John H/Australian Seafari Pty Ltd
JH on 24.10.04 @ 10:49 PM AEST [link]

Wall-to-wall coral reef .........under the surf zone.

Hard-packed corals withstand surf and strong currents on the 'weather-side' of this northern reef. Few people get to swim over territory like this due to strong currents, waves and other hazards. This is the last frontier of coral reefs, and this one is far offshore from agricultural run-offs, (silt and fertilisers) and that potentially greatest danger of all..... crowds of curious humans, kicking, touching, breaking, collecting, spearing, spoiling.

We've all done it. In a continuous large group of coral loving visitors, the damage occurs faster than the recovery. No one is innocent when you visit a reef. TV environmentalist David Bellamy has said: "wait until 10% of the Asian population falls in love with coral reefs". (Thats about 100 million tourists)
.
JH on 21.10.04 @ 07:15 AM AEST [link]

Coral Garden .........in sheltered waters

Coral reefs have two sides, one rugged and the other calm. The rugged side has hard-packed corals while in the sheltered 'other side' of the reef the coral formations are like those above.

The sheltered side may have a calm lagoon. Boats anchor here and this is where most people swim and dive. Anchoring on the weather-side is not a usual practice, although ocean visibility can be best, and this is where we find the sharks.

A compromise is to dive at the top or bottom tips of reefs - where lagoon meets weather-side. But this is for strong swimmers only, consequently most divers only get to see the calm lagoon waters.

Photo's John Harding/Australian Seafari Pty Ltd

JH on 21.10.04 @ 07:01 AM AEST [link]

Green Sawfish .........rare creature of a past era.

We were on a diving safari on the New South Wales north coast. A fisherman in a club told us of "a monster" tangled in his deepwater fish trap line. He failed to recognise the catch and was quite frightened of what he saw without a face mask handy.

We helped bring his catch home the next day with our twin 40 hp outboards doing the work his boat could not handle.

As fishermen need to do, the 'monster' was disposed of - it was a prize catch. The 'meat' sent to the fish markets in Sydney, the 'saw' retained as a souvenier by the fisherman, the late Keith Knox of Minniewater near Wooli, NSW. He spoke of the encounter for many years as a great adventure.

This is first and only sawfish any of us have seen alive and underwater to this present era. The photograph recently 'surfaced' and was signed by the glamourous young model posing with my speargun for this tongue-in-cheek picture.

A satire on 'divers and their sea trophies', extendable to all fishermen, all over the world.

Photo: John Harding/fathom collection

JH on 15.10.04 @ 12:07 PM AEST [link]

Spearfishing Clubs - early era ........the Bondi boys

Spearfishermen of the early days were considered to be either very brave or fools. Sharks were the number one threat and there were a lot more larger ones in the sea than today.

The Bondi spearmen were a hard bunch, Ron Ibel - a handsome yet tough, beer-drinking, street-wise guy that could have been a star (like Errol Flynn) in movies today seemed to lead the club. A mentor for many. Ron was a truck driver for the wholesale fruit market of Haymarket until he won the lottery and bought a prawn trawler.

The club guys met Saturday mornings at a hotel, got 'half-tanked' (courage for shark-infested waters) then went spearfishing, 'off the rocks' around Bondi Beach and Maroubra in the era before speedboats became popular.

The twice monthly spearfishing competitions were well attended by hundreds from a dozen clubs until the beginning of professional abalone diving attracted the keenest divers to live away from the city, nearer southern waters.

The limited shallow rocky reef around Sydney was stripped of all fish over 400 g in a mindless quest for ego gratification. There could have been other ways to find champions, and there still is.

Other leading spearmen (Ron Taylor, Ben Cropp) became the first media conservationists- shunning the mindless waste where poor quality fish were speared, weighed and then dumped.

Cheating was rampant amongst younger guys and impossible to police. It was all-for-nothing, long term.The competitions have changed slightly yet not enough in decades and are overdue for revision.

New tests of skill and stamina may be devised for the open ocean. Swimming pool competitions are 'a sham' to mask the enviromental vandalism of the mindless waste elsewhere. It's been happening for far too long.

Free diving with a speargun is still a great test of underwater ability, and a confidence builder like no other. But spearfishing competitions belong in the 20th century.


JH on 14.10.04 @ 04:34 PM AEST [link]

Tiger Shark feeds .........right near our boat.

I came close to having both hands and forearms included in the gut of this 2.6 meter long tiger shark last Sunday.
A second or so later, the shark was obscured by foam as it ripped the holding wire loop free from the bait, the remains of a large cod. (This 'hookless bait' from a seafood wholesaler).

Watching three tiger sharks cruise around before feeding was tedious and hypnotic. Circle after increasingly larger and larger circles, possibly hypnotising the intended prey (and me).
Then a straight-line swim for the bite. A live prey may not see it until too late. Chomp!
Tigers have a slower mental time-frame than us. Maybe we are just impatient for 'action'? 'They' appear to study the prey with caution. Mostly this offers a diver time to get out, and into a boat.

When tiger sharks do feed, the power is awesome. They bite the entire piece away then swallow, no chewing required.
Just as dangerous in shallow water too. Beware of big shark getting too close. In some respects similar to a white pointer - when they bite, but a slower swimming pattern around the prey to begin with.
John Harding photo/Newspix@newsltd.com">Newspix@newsltd.com

JH on 13.10.04 @ 11:55 PM AEST [link]

Nurse Shark ..........(Tawny Shark)

A non threatening species here, in the ultimate shark close-up pose for the video camera. Location: Batt Reef, a shallow sandy reef 27 km offshore from Port Douglas, (and the latest tiger shark HQ for underewater shark photography).

Nurse sharks have twin dorsal fins positioned near the tail, similar to a great nurse in this respect. They tend to be shy at first. Like a big tropical wobbegong and probably not as dangerous either.
Photo: John H/Aust.Seafari Pty Ltd

JH on 13.10.04 @ 11:11 PM AEST [link]

SHARK FOOD Tigers sharks fed on this stingray.

Tiger sharks make an impression on stingrays off Port Douglas - definately not in the travel brochures, yet. "The great Australian bite".
Photographs by John Harding

JH on 13.10.04 @ 07:01 PM AEST [link]

SEASCAPE Low Tide Coral Reef

Lowest of low tides near at Ellison Reef (#17-044 Mission Beach area) occur in winter. This day was like a jackpot. Not only the low low of tide at midday,(exposing greater than normal the usually submerged reef for an hour or so) but no breeze AND a clear sunny sky. Unusual for the no breeze, common for the other factors.

Three years ago the coral eating crown of thorns starfish (CoT) went through the area. Local marine identity Perry Harvey has told me "Ellison Reef is now dead, eaten by the starfish". Perry was my guide on this perfect day. He knows the region well having captained his own charter boats here for decades.

At nearby Otter Reef (#18-018) we encountered CoT during the famous Belgian Expedition to the Great Barrrier Reef, (a 35mm scientific film project) and made the first pictures exposing the hazard (soon after the problem was noticed at Green Island underwater observatory, off Cairns). Coral bleaching is something different and more widespread. Neither are much good for the future of hard corals.
Photo: John Harding



JH on 08.10.04 @ 08:51 PM AEST [link]

TRAVEL ..........Dingo - Fraser Island

An Australian dingo in a semi-playful mood. Thirty or so seconds before, this was a different dog, tail curled back, hair down the centre of the spine raised - I was worried out there on the sandhills of Fraser Island with not a big stick of wood or even a rock anywhere to use for defense. Just a couple of cameras.

The dog had spotted me and made a fast trot in a straight line. As with sharks and cameras, if you take plenty of pictures at least the fear inside does not lose control - you are concentrating on photo composition, exposure, number of film frames and so on. All pre digital thoughts of course.

Earlier frames show how it happened. The turning point came when the dog sniffed my scent, (rubbed on a small piece of wood and thrown closer than I dared to venture). He settled down, and I instigated a game of play with a friendly 'growl' with a semi lunge toward him. As a former dog owner you know these things.

This dingo is certainly a healthy and magnificent looking dog on the northern part of the island (the most pure dingo 'strain' known to exist anywhere).

A year later a young child was severely mauled by a dingo on Fraser Island and rangers shot a whole heap of them after major media coverage. Other changes have occured to deter the dogs, such as wire cages for campers to store food overnight. After all, the dogs are always looking for a feed.

Photo: John Harding


JH on 07.10.04 @ 08:58 AM AEST [link]

Fish and Coral .....................Australia's Ribbon Reefs

This is the image for our proposed new biz card - looking a bit like a page from National Geographic Mag circa 1960's. That's the appeal. Remember those fasinating underwater Jerry Greenberg pictures from Florida? And the early Jacques Cousteau stories before Calypso began environmental issues?
And the 'Living in Safety with the Atom (bomb tests)' in Nevada?


JH on 06.10.04 @ 12:50 PM AEST [link]

CORAL FISH MACRO free screensaver.

JH on 06.10.04 @ 12:23 PM AEST [link]

WW2 AIRCRAFT WRECKAGE Ruby Reef, Cairns QLD

Sixty years ago a pilot had to land his aircraft in the lagoon of Ruby Reef, near the famous Ribbon Reefs north from Cairns. The aircraft glided to a smooth water landing.....and then sank.

Who the wartime pilot was and what became of him is a mystery we'd like to solve. There are more intact aircraft wrecks in PNG, but in deeper water. This one has the beauty of a healthy coral reef, complete with a giant clam nearby. Quite unique. But what a shame the propeller is missing. The wings are barely seen, covered with live coral today.

The young pilot picked a nice reef to land upon, but coral is a hostile environment especially if you don't have a boat. Maybe he had an inflateable single pontoon life raft?

This is all that remains of the fighter as of September 2004. What remains of the pilot? Who was he?

JH on 06.10.04 @ 10:06 AM AEST [link]

TIGER SHARK FEEDS ............a stingray snack

Captured tiger sharks are often found with stingray spines around and inside their mouth. Why? Stingray are on the menu of this shark species. When the rays doze, usually on a sandy sea floor, they may cover themselves with a layer of sand for visual protection.

Another tactic for survival for sleeping rays is to group together, wing-tip to wing-tip. Any ray disturbed will subsequently alert his near companion and so on. (We photographed a good example of this near the famed Yongala shipwreck, south of Townsville during the filming of our video release documentary Reef Safari).

The shark pictured was one of the estimated 10 to 15 tigers sighted last week during a 24 hour period. The picture was taken at non-tourist Batt Reef 27 km off Port Douglas, Queensland AFTER Ben Cropp's rubbber dinghy was chewed to a mess by a similar sized animal.





JH on 05.10.04 @ 09:37 AM AEST [link]

MACRO MARINE LIFE ...........the only dorsal fins were on fish.

We returned to Batt Reef off Port Douglas last weekend in the hope of filming tiger sharks that were so common last Tuesday. (See pictures which follow).

No tiger sharks sighted. Maybe a tidal factor? The only dorsal fin I saw was on this pretty but very tiny fish. To be continued........

Oct 7 2004 Port Douglas newspaper reports game fishermen killed two tiger sharks this week while trying to achieve a "ROYAL SLAM" (three 1000 pound sharks in a single day). So that's why we could not fiind the tigers last weekend!



JH on 03.10.04 @ 09:52 PM AEST [link]