FLATHEAD ....... spearman: Vic "Snowie" Ley

Vic Ley has the best pair of eyes for spotting hidden things underwater. It is an asset that enabled him to win the Australian Title (for breath-holding spear fishermen) and took him to represent Australia at the world titles in Cuba.

This nice flathead was eaten for supper after being picked up at Hat Head, the same location as featured in the Queensland groper story that follows:



JH on 30.11.06 @ 07:16 PM AEST [spearman: Vic "Snowie" Ley">link]

KING NEPTUNES PARK ..... Oceanarium 1980's

King Neptunes Park no longer exists having returned to vacant council-owned land when the lease expired.

Champion free-diving spearman Vic “Snowie” Ley and his partner Carol Constable met while working at this oceanarium. Both presented the shows at this Port Macquarie, New South Wales holiday town.

Imported alligators, dolphin, monkeys, penguin and sea lions all featured in family-themed shows.

Vic Ley remembers the young Australian fur seal (sea lion) arriving for care at the park.

“It was just skin and bones” he said.

“We soon got him fat. He was like a pet puppy, and just as smart, although partially blind from his tough times before he arrived.

He knew my voice and would rush to me when I called. I was the only one who fed him and that makes a difference. I could take him anywhere.

If given the opportunity I reckon we could have gone snorkel diving together and he would have remained with me”.

The giant Queensland groper incident occurred a few months before I started work at the oceanarium.

Apparently the fish was in poor condition when it arrived after being netted by fishermen at Hat Head.

They should have rejected it then but did what they thought was the right thing at the time.

I don’t know if the fishermen were paid anything for their troubles or not”.




JH on 29.11.06 @ 02:33 PM AEST [Oceanarium 1980's">link]

(the) SICK GIANT GROPER ...... This photo by Bob Sands

JH on 26.11.06 @ 12:22 PM AEST [This photo by Bob Sands">link]

GIANT QUEENSLAND GROPER ...... How Bob Sands saved one

Two views of healthy Queensland Groper, Sydney Marineland 1976

It doesn't always happen as above. Due to unclear circumstances a less fortunate groper (or grouper if you prefer) ended up quite sick in captivity perhaps to to rough handling by fishermen. Bob Sands remembers:



Saving a giant Queenslander

"A bunch of fisherman netted the 2.7 meter grouper off Hat Head and sold it to the former marine park at Port Macquarie.

I had already photographed this fish off Black Rock a couple of months earlier. I could tell it was the same fish because of the split in the lower part of the tail.

When I learned about it, I took a reporter from a newspaper along. Looking over the edge into the tiny tank, I was shocked to see that the water so shallow, the grouper was rubbing along the bottom with dorsal fins exposed into the summer sun.

I made a complaint, got whacked on the side of the head and thrown bodily out of the establishment. Not a good start.

So the newspaper called the NSW State Fisheries Department. Up comes their top man along with a 60-Minutes film crew and star TV journalist George Negus.

Reluctantly they let me get into the pool to photograph the fish underwater. This poor fish was tortured. He had rubbed many of the scales off his belly and hit the concrete walls so often that he had torn his once bright billiard-ball sized eyes out of their sockets.

Upshot was the owner was ordered to release the fish.

So he intended to anesthetize it and simply release it into the nearby river which could have resulted with it rolling along the bottom in the outgoing tide like a boiled cabbage.

The State Fisheries officer said it would certainly die because it was badly injured and could not navigate home. He recommended that it be transported back to where it was captured.

With help I put the fish into a big cheese vat and drove it back to Hat Head.

Before we had a chance to put it back into the creek, the park owner gave it a couple of monster squirts of an anesthetic into the gills.

We walked the now very sick fish along Hat Head saltwater creek for about three hours.

We eventually discovered that if we clanked the jaw up and down, this would pump water across the gills. It came around and eventually was strong enough to swim unaided.

Although now blinded, the fish was navigating familiar territory. I swam over the top of him as he headed out toward Fish Rock.

I went about half a mile with him. He was swimming strongly when I last saw him disappear into the depths and out of sight.

About a year later, some local divers sighted him again, same split tail.

Still blind but doing OK".


That is a true story for your blog, the best repository for such a tale.

I sold a version to Readers’ Digest who paid enough to buy a professional dive boat which I named after my wife, Eva.

When people later asked what plans I had for the weekend, I would answer that I was spending it with Eva. (Robert 'Bob' Sands)




JH on 26.11.06 @ 11:43 AM AEST [How Bob Sands saved one">link]

FIRST OUTBACK TRAVELS ...... a holiday from the sea

(top) Live croc bait in the Northern Territory
(below) An emu was noctural scavenger at Katherine, NT

Professional 16mm film suddenly became a bit too expensive for many of us in Australia. The Leyland Brothers had survived the cost increase by experimenting with exposed super 8 film transfered directly to 2” video tape for sale and broadcast.

We thought we could go a little step better. Shoot on the same film stock then edit out the splices as the Leyland’s weren’t bothering to do this. The result is what you'd expect today.

My 90 minute film was Sea Safari - released exclusively for home video rentals, not offered to TV networks - it wasn’t a usual run-of-the mill documentary, more like a combo art film with travel adventure. In other words a test of the video market.

Also new was this interest in exploring the outback. That’s if you term driving to Darwin in an air con V8 Ford an adventure in the outback!

Perhaps my 18 months of screening Northern Safari (for producer Keith F Adams) had something to do with this new-found interest away from the sea. After all, the outback films were very popular in Australia then, while underwater shark material was yet to be perfected and wouldn't really happen until small video camera became available, years later.

A drive to Darwin from Sydney wouldn’t be much of a hazard today (apart from stones through your radiator and or windshield or the stray ‘roo that hops in front at the wrong moment – I’ve had all of three delights).

Once there was still a lot of dirt on the roads and people with guns doing crazy things occasionally so travelers often formed mini-convoys of three or four cars at places like the Mt.Isa camping ground for their Northern Territory leg of the northern journey.

The convoy I joined had a likeable mechanic called Lutz Fery from Berlin, two young kids traveling on a motor bike from South Africa, and a guy from Melbourne with a dog and a boat on his LandCruiser ute.

Lutz Fery is shown here with one of my super 8 camera’s - always used on a professional tripod and ten times heavier than the camera!

The South African kids were crocodile bait here in a river in the NT. There is always a risk with crocs while they should have been only freshwater types and not so vicious, I wouldn't take the risk today.

The guy from Melbourne slept under the stars. The others used a tiny tent. While at Katherine Gorge we had an emu check us out during the night.

These shots didn’t make the final edit of Sea Safari but other good material did.

Lutz and I later met Rick Trippe who was then managing the leading hotel in Darwin, and is still living there and braving the hundreds of crocodiles and sharks as he spears fish in the very murky harbor almost every day. The keenest spearman in Australia.





JH on 24.11.06 @ 04:14 PM AEST [a holiday from the sea">link]

AUSTRALIAN SEAFARI 2 ..... Coral Sea destination

(Top picture) When profits from our Australian Seafari film shows arrived, we began spending. A big filming trip to the Solomon Islands was a test with some new stills camera gear.

Then a new Zodiac and 30 HP Johnson outboard arrived.

Later the first micro Sony video camera – shown here at Lihou Reef in The Coral Sea, - the camera was almost useless professionally, it proved OK for recording other aspects of these assignments - the now rare interview with Captain Wally Muller.

Wally was guest-guide for this expedition aboard the Mackay-based charter boat Elizabeth E II.



(Below) The beautiful Spanish Dancer - a large nudibranch which proved a popular and key sequence in the original traveling film shows.



JH on 23.11.06 @ 03:10 PM AEST [Coral Sea destination">link]

Christine Danaher, Capt. Wally Muller, Dog-tooth tuna at Lihou Reef.


JH on 23.11.06 @ 03:05 PM AEST [link]

AUSTRALIAN SEAFARI, Crocodile Dundee - film shows

Both films were touring western New South Wales at the same time. One grossed $40 million in Australia! The other did very well (considering).

Venues were towns where no cinema existed. Town Halls, bowling clubs, RSL auditoriums.

With lots of TV advertising, newspaper editorials and display ads, 1000 handbills per venue and 10 to 20 color posters displayed in store windows some weeks in advance a good response could be expected.

Simply rent an auditorium and turn up with bright (350 watt xenon) projector, films and a ticket seller like Christine Danaher (pictured).

If a cinema existed, we'd go there too. This was more the case in Queensland where only cinemas were allowed to show films.

(This silly and out-dated law has since been abolished. A worse example existed in South Australia for many years - this law required an on-duty fire brigade officer "to be present at any screening of motion picture films" in case of fire).










JH on 22.11.06 @ 08:17 AM AEST [Crocodile Dundee - film shows">link]

AUSTRALIAN SEAFARI ..... documentary film of the sea

Tiger sharks gaffed by big game fishermen on the Ribbon Reefs (1975)




JH on 13.11.06 @ 10:58 AM AEST [documentary film of the sea">link]

SEA SNAKES ...... from the film Australian Seafari

While leading diving excursions aboard Coralita for Wally Muller, we recorded our highlights on 16mm underwater film – this was the age before video cameras.

Traveling to The Coral Sea gave us stops in The Swain Reefs, a good location for filming sea snakes. Venomous air breathing reptiles that seem to have been forgotten in modern documentaries.

It was at Marion Reef that Coralita deckhand (the late) Richard Weir found us a pair of mating sea snakes. The resulting film and this picture have remained unique in the decades since.

A sequence of Richard holding the reptiles was included in the 90 minute documentary Australian Seafari. (previous titled Queensland Seafari) which I filmed, edited and narrated - and distributed with 16mm projectors to theatres and clubs along the east coast of Australia from Cairns to Melbourne and inland.

The films did establish theatre records. Such promotions are not financially profitable today due to increased television advertising costs and smaller theatres having replaced the original single screen venues, and other factors.





JH on 13.11.06 @ 10:54 AM AEST [from the film Australian Seafari">link]

GREEN TURTLE ....... with suckerfish-remora

In Queensland's Capricorn-Bunker Islands Group


JH on 13.11.06 @ 10:18 AM AEST [with suckerfish-remora">link]

SAUMAREZ REEF ...... Wal's Bommie 1974

It was the first trip to Wal’s Bommie at Saumarez Reef. A spectacular dive site visited by just a couple of dozen divers ever.

The location may be now be forgotten, unless Wally Muller’s sons Roy and Alexander Muller were given the details.

Rising from a little over 100 feet of water to within 30 feet of the surface it is similar to well dived Pixie Pinnacle (off Cooktown) in shape and far more spectacular as it is covered with gorgonian fans and the miniature eco system that flourishes with it. Pixie is rather bald by comparison.

The leopard shark was not seen by these two guys, (in the lower picture). It swam in from the rear and then left.

An example of a shark that was close and remained unseen. If it were a wild tiger shark, and plenty of big tigers live at Saumarez, it would have been a concern.

It’s a good idea to keep your eyes open in these tropical waters.



JH on 13.11.06 @ 10:12 AM AEST [Wal's Bommie 1974">link]

THE SANDS OF TIME

Robert (Bob) Sands

The globe trotting former master scuba instructor scared the daylights out of his old friends at South West Rocks last week with a surprise visit.

At-large for twenty-something years The Shifting Whispering Sands was back in Australia for a brief couple of weeks. His home these days is San Diego, California.

www.hboinfo.com








JH on 10.11.06 @ 04:48 PM AEST [link]

SAUMAREZ REEF ..... F-111 fly-by near Coralita

Saumarez Reef was one of the favorite destinations of mine. Coralita went there a few times. There was a great bommie that came out of 33 meters of depth we called Wal’s bommie after our skipper Capt Wally Muller (pictured with 2nd wife Denise and his crew, Dianne and Simon).

The WW2 shipwreck was being used as target practice by three F-111 aircraft of the Royal Australian Air Force when we were there filming Sea Safari (a video release) in 1983.

All aboard were spectacularly treated to these three aircraft flying very low and above us while on their way to attack the then intact Liberty Ship – high and dry on the reef a few kilometers away.

It was amazing as the three aircraft came at the ship from three different directions and passed above it simultaneously.

Bob Sands was aboard that last dive trip there with Wally Muller (and supplied the picture of F-111 aircraft doing a flying-by near Coralita).

Bob was a popular dive instructor at Kempsey NSW, now an overseas resident gaining fame and fortune with his development of recompression chambers.



JH on 06.11.06 @ 09:44 AM AEST [F-111 fly-by near Coralita">link]

THE SWAIN REEFS ..... Gannet Cay; Coralita

(Top) The auto weather station as seen from a Coralita port hole.

(Below) Gannets on the sand cay, Coralita at anchor.

There isn't much land in The Swain Reefs - the largest expanse and maze on the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. This territory was the speciality of Capt. Wally Muller who was a commercial fisherman before he became the first owner of the world famous charter boat for divers.

The sand cay moves. Sometimes the weather station has been seen in the centre of the cay - here it is pictured on the very edge. Cyclones and storms occur often and especially between Christmas and April.




JH on 04.11.06 @ 02:29 PM AEST [Gannet Cay; Coralita">link]

SAVE THE BARRIER REEF .....the conservation campaign

Save the Barrier Reef 1970

It was a Queensland conservation movement that became national years before other campaigns:

Commercial Whaling,
Tasmanian Dams (Franklin River).
Fraser Island (sand-mining).
Uranium (keep it in the ground).

Save the Barrier Reef campaign was replaced by global warming and coral bleaching concerns.

Crown of Thorns starfish problem hasn’t gone away. Mis-information continues.

A freelance writer in an Australian pop science magazine this year believed an adult starfish lives eight years and produces millions of eggs each year.

That is correct, but the author neglected to add the extra 200 years a starfish can survive.

This was according to (the late) Dr Robert Endean, a scientist who studied growth rings on the spines – amongst other things associated with this pest.

The above plague photo was near Mystery Cay (two reefs to the east to be precise) in The Swain Reefs during the 1970’s. Captain Wally G Muller took us there aboard Coralita.

JH on 04.11.06 @ 02:16 PM AEST [the conservation campaign">link]

FISH PICTURE ..... aka Blue Parrot

Venus tusk fish in southern Queensland


JH on 03.11.06 @ 09:52 AM AEST [aka Blue Parrot">link]