FathomOz

ORIGINAL TEAM

Gareth Powell (Publisher), John H Harding (Editor),

Roy Bisson (Art Director) and Dr Richard Ibara (USA).

Click ABOUT for information

Tanya Binning appeared in the Italian documentary “Mondo Cane” when a teenager.

The film was a hit and gave Tanya an introduction to other feature films.  Remembered today as a surf girl pin-up of the sixties, Tanya also was featured in Ron Taylor’s “Surf Scene” (1965) – a documentary that introduced leading Australian surfers to the underwater world.  Filmed at Double Island Point, Noosa and North Stradbroke Island.

Tanya traveled to South Australia with Ron and Valerie Taylor to swim and dive in the fresh water filled sink holes surrounding the tiny city of Mount Gambier.  The most stunning being Picaninnie Ponds.  This picture by John Harding won an international award in 1965.  Valerie Taylor in the foreground with Tanya on the surface.  Water temperature is icy cold by Australian ocean temperature standards.

Fish Rock Cave was once home to magnificent and now protected species like this.

When first efforts were made to protect this stunning scuba diving site from spear fishing, a Newcastle club waged ‘war’ by holding a spearing competition under the nose of local scuba divers.   It did not win them any points and in time they lost their battle.  Responsible spear fishing today, is another matter and part of the evolution.  Giant groper were also speared at this location.  (from John Harding’s Aquarius documentary).

Originally published in Wade Doak’s DIVE New Zealand magazine, these pictures show what free diving was doing in the late 1960’s.

Far left pictures (upper and lower) feature the late Captain Wally Muller – stalking and bagging a blue spot coral trout in the Swain Reefs 1967.   Wally Muller was a professional fisherman who became a free diver – a very unusual thing. Pro fishermen see lots of shark action and most would not dream of diving.  To them it was a realm of guaranteed doom, in the 1960’s at least.  Large blue spot coral trout would be a good source of ciguatera, the tasteless and odorless toxin present in many tropical fish predators.

Other pictures show Bob Grounds at Yeppoon, Queensland offshore coral formations.  The coral and speargun picture was an intentional copy of a famous Ben Cropp/Ron Taylor image.  In both examples a home made speargun is shown.

The Spanish Mackerel picture was from the era when some sponsorship was being made to divers.  In this example it was Evinrude outboard motors and Sea Hornet spear guns.   Sea Hornet assisted the production of “John Harding’s Aquarius” by supplying 3000 feet of 16mm color film.

Bob Grounds holds one of the final Blue Groper at Shark Island, Cronulla (Sydney) before they were banned from capture by spear fishing.  The picture was published in Sydney’s The Sun newspaper with a page 3 headline “Don’t Say You Were Not Warned”.

Ron Taylor won his world crown in Tahiti, 1965.  After returning home this picture was taken at Montague Island off Narooma (New South Wales, south coast).  It could have made a good Rolex advert had not water drops been on the lens port of the Rolleimarin housing.  The Yellowtail Kingfish still exist but large fish are no longer common.

White blotches on plate coral are curious and alarming.   This picture is from the last roll of underwater film exposed by this late famous charter boat skipper and owner of Coralita.   It was discovered in his motor drive Nikon camera still in it’s marine housing.

‘Celebrity’ dive instructors were on this dive, Terry Morrison  pictured 2nd from left.  The tall guy is David Martin another instructor well known for his time at North Stradbroke Island and elsewhere.

View from Cook Island – looking north toward the Queensland border with New South Wales

December 2009: The charter boat “Friendship” is no longer at Mission Beach doing her once famous day-trips, neither is the live coral shown exposed at low tide on Ellison Reef. Crown of Thorns starfish devastated that reef two years after the above picture was taken.  A pity as good examples of low tide reef are not easily seen in tourist zones today.   Live hard coral would still, hopefully, exist at Beaver Cay which is the key destination for day trips out of Mission Beach. JHH
The wild dingo was ‘a bit of a worry’ at the time it was encountered.  Eighteen months later many island dingos were shot by park rangers after a young boy died from being mauled by one of these native dogs.  In the north of Fraser Island their strain is considered ‘pure’ as the above picture illustrates.

I think it was the rusty color that justified this picture.  It looks like an old dredge.  Ben Cropp went ashore to the airport and left us to look after his boat Freedom III.  Under a blazing sun we ventured out in the dinghy to look around the various ships at anchor.  This one was the most photogenic.  Bamaga is on the inside of Cape York in the Gulf of Carpentaria.   It’s not on the tourist trail.

When we began Fathom magazine in 1971 – dive shops had an attitude or sales line to  customers  quite different to today.

“There has never been a shark attack upon a scuba diver” was one line that helped sell goods.  It was true for a while but eventually the inevitable happened.  A scuba diver was ripped to pieces by a white pointer in South Australia – then more attacks on scuba divers followed.

Were the sharks being inadvertently trained?  Nobody knows.

Back in 1970 sharks featured on the cover of dive magazines was an advertising revenue taboo.

It was a rule that the Australian spear fishing magazine magazine did not adhere to, but the leading USA magazine, Skin Diver avoided shark pictures.

Sharks were not good business for the fledgling scuba diving industry.

It shows how little knowledge existed back then of these predators.

LIFE magazine began printing an Australian edition in 1967 and sharks were featured in the first two or three issues.  The above picture by Ron Taylor shows John H. (Editor of Fathom) about to fire a second .303 power head at The Big Island off Wooli, New South Wales (1965).

Fathom had a Hammerhead shark on the cover of issue #2 – which proved very popular.

Gradually Skin Diver changed it’s theme and others also realized that divers wanted as much information as possible about a creature thought to be the major hazard faced in the sea.

Today, diving with sharks (often from a cage) is a huge international money spinner.  Even diving in an aquarium with ’stupefied’ sharks is considered a big adventure deal for novice tourist divers, and it is.

Why stupefied?  If the Grey Nurse shark looks as if it is ‘gasping for breath’ it probably is.

Sharks in captivity behave very differently to wild sharks in the sea.  Especially sharks that have seen few divers.