FathomOz

We went 250 miles offshore in this tiny fishing boat.   A great adventure with a pioneer of The Great Barrier Reef, Captain Wally Muller- later of Coralita charter boat notoriety. Coralita was Australia’s first scuba dive boat on the GBR, launched in 1969.

Wally Muller built Coralita which was launched in 1969. Originally it was intended as a cruise boat working the islands and reefs offshore on the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.   The vessel, while being an excellent open sea craft was prone to ‘rocking wildly’ at anchor. Tourists were often seasick.  Wally Muller then turned to fishing and  diving charters.  Through his friendship with Ron Taylor and John Harding (then the founding editor of FATHOM) he was able to attract local and overseas scuba divers, especially from USA.  Hollywood producers seeking shark scenes obtained these in The Coral Sea.  Wally returned to Saumarez Reef several  times and found a magnificent bommie in 100 feet of water that rose to 30 feet under the surface.  Modestly named “Wal’s Bommie” it was for a short time one of the best scuba dive locations known.  Today the location would be ‘lost’. Although Wally Muller chartered and named many reefs in The Swain Reefs, only one retains one of his original names “Riversong Cay”.

We encountered wild grey reef sharks galore.  They even chewed on the diving platform.  It was unique action at the time.  Later we would realize that sharks elsewhere eventually settle down and adopt a different behavior.

At locations where no divers have been before you should expect territorial aggressive behavior.

Probably rare today and certainly not at dive resorts where sharks are virtually ‘trained’ and behave.

Film of those original encounters might be a surprise to many today.

Up top: Dr Don Ahern, JM Harding, Roy Bisson, Dr Colin Friendship, Liz Hen.

On the duckboard:  JH Harding (with 16mm camera) , shark wrangler Dr Richard Ibara, Allan Murayama

Valerie and Ron Taylor took this picture from their dinghy nearby.

!6mm film from the expedition featured a search for the rare sea shell, a volute known to be found only here and worth thousands of dollars at the time.

However it was the shark action which proved more entertaining.

Shark wrangler and marine biologist, Richard Ibara used fish baits to attract sharks into the shallows.

In one scene we see where he grabs a live grey reef shark by the tail (when the shark had it’s mouth firmly secured to a fish) and hauled the shark onto a reef.

It remained there for a few moments, just long enough for this unusual film sequence to be recorded.  Kids loved seeing it in the cinemas.

Picture from “Australian Seafari” – a family film show in cinema’s which included The Chesterfield Reef Expedition.

The late Alby Ziebell, last owner-captain of Coralita

Hitchhiker was a temporary solution for Albie while a new boat, larger than Coralita was being built especially.  The outcome was not good.  The builder filed for bankruptcy and everything was lost.  A tragedy in many ways.

Albie was an excellent charter boat skipper and diver.  His underwater photography in a short time became equal to the best.  Years of professional abalone diving in Tasmania gave him an edge in fine tuning and perfecting his business.

A plan to expand diving charter horizons to New Guinea waters was the beginning of the end…..

Coralita sank in Cairns Harbour just days before the first schedualed departure.  Nobody was injured.

August 11, 2010   Coralita was renamed Alita then renamed Bell Cay.  News item today indicates the vessel has come to grief in The Swain Reefs  (250 km offshore) with over 20 people aboard.  All have been rescued after treading water for some time.

GT

Golden trevally (1984)

School of Batfish above the Yongala in 1984 helped to mark the location

My first dives on the Yongala were in October 1984, while aboard Coralita with Captain Wally Muller. This was the era pre GPS so finding the wreck might take some time using radar fixes and the echo sounder.  The other factor to help ID the location was a resident school of Batfish, so numerous on the surface they could be spotted a hundred meters away.

On my return dives with Ben Cropp in 2002 the wreck was noticeably changed.  One morning while doing a solo dive on the wreck I heard the sounds of the approaching – and anchoring tourist dive boat run by my friend Mike Ball.  A rare experience no doubt.

What a racket of sound underwater.  Zodiac’s positioning buoys, the rattle of heavy anchor chain and the thumping drone of big boat engines.  Do fish get accustomed to this noise and ‘put up with it’ or do some clear-out?

The Batfish were gone -  perhaps that’s a seasonal thing?  So were the stingray, giant groper and black kingfish.

Since 2002 I’d expect that ‘marine parks’ have placed permanent moorings in place.  If not then these are long overdue.  These prevent anchor damage from continual boat arrivals.

Yongala is still a worthwhile dive if only a fraction as exciting as in 1984 – which is to be expected.

Ron Taylor made a 50 minute film of the wreck in the late 1970′s when it was in it’s prime.  JHH