FathomOz

Brian McKenna (wearing cap) takes a visiting journalist (Ben Mitchell) for a spin across the lake at Mallacoota where a couple of dozen abalone divers are based. Professional abalone licenses (in 2009) now cost upwards of $5-7 million and offer an income of $500,000 per year net. However a disease is threatening wild abalone stocks and allowable quota’s continue to be reduced making life difficult for divers who have borrowed heavily to get into the business. Fortunately the abalone disease has not yet effected the shellfish in Tasmania where they are more abundant. Illegal poaching of the shellfish carries heavy penalties.

Top pictures: Brian McKenna, champion spear fishermen from Sydney. Below picture: Vic Ley testing his new boat (1969)

(click for larger image)

Rex Bichard is a professional abalone diver who wears a stainless steel suit.  His home is at Port Lincoln, South Australia – that’s why.

Publisher Gareth Powell was amazed at the volume of Valerie Taylor underwater pictures available and composed the text to accompany this picture from a Mt Gambier sink hole dive in South Australia (1970).

Vic Ley lept from the deck of a charter boat at Hayman Island. Photo by John Harding

August 2009.  We now know what happened on the Cooma wreck site.  Charter boat captain and owner Ron Isbell told us he found the blades were attached to the ‘boss’ with bolts.  Ron was able to detach three of the four blades – (the fourth being vertical and deep in coral rubble).   One of the blades drifted away on floats into shallow water surf where it may still remain today – although highly unlikely.  The other two bronze blades were  ’salvaged’.  Their fate is unknown.

Ron didn’t indicate what prompted him to visually destroy this magnificent shallow water spectacle for photography, but at least the mystery has been given some understanding.

Early episodes of the TV dolphin show Flipper featured cutaway scenes of the Cooma propeller.

Freediver John Harding was  shown on the cover of SKINDIVER with the Cooma propeller in  February 1965 issue of this former USA magazine and in Fathom 5 contents page shown here.

Excellent historical picture below by Ron Taylor.