76. AUSTRALIAN MARINE DIVERS 1960 - 1972 in pictures

1964

Fathom mag #3 (1972)  The first Coral Sea trip for divers.

Ron and Val Taylor, Walt and Jean Deas, Vic Ley, and Roy Bisson were aboard.

Fathom No.3 (1972)

1964

1964

Chesterfield Reef trip (1971)

Middleton Reef trip (1972 and 1973)

Kenn Reef trip (1970)  Walt Deas picture of his wife Jean.

Ron Taylor (1964)

self (1965) 

Ron Taylor live narration shows at the Union Theatre (1967-1968)

Riversong captained by Wally Muller (b. 1930)was the one boat sufficiently brave or reckless enough to explore The Swain Reefs (un-chartered until 1965) and Saumarez Reef in The Coral Sea.

Specifications

42 feet in length 12' 6" beam (approx.)

Built-in 1947 by W. Beatie of Mackay Qld.

Timber - Spotted gum  6" heavy planks   1.5" thick deck planks

48 HP Gardiner engine delivered 8 knots.

4500-pound holding capacity freezer (for fillets).

Ron Zangari wrote of the first free divers to The Swain Reefs.

Ron Zangari photographed by Ben Cropp (circa 1962)

Ron Taylor's documentary (1964)  Good quality and sound.

Grey Nurse shark jaws (circa 1964)

Spear fishing aboard Riversong (1964)

New Skindiving Paradise (new edit) Heron Island 1963

Ron Taylor at Fitzroy Lagoon (offshore Gladstone Qld) 1964

South Australian shark bite survivor Brian Rodger. (1964)

Alexander and Roy Muller - sons of Captain Wally Muller.

Grey Nurse shark speared at Wattamolla, Sydney circa 1961

Ted Louis and Dave Rowling (both at the left, top, and below) were the leaders of that era.

        Ben Crop with the poison injecting syringe on a spear.

Ron Taylor, (right), homemade equipment.  Kurnell  NSW

Plongees - a French underwater magazine noted for color covers. A brilliant portrait of the new CMAS World Champion. Ron Taylor held in French Polynesia (Tahiti) 1965

Ron Taylor and his Sydney skin-diving team appear in The Shark Hunters documentary.   

Ted Louis, Blue groper possibly at Jibbon bombora.

 



John Gallagher has been able to add information (May 2019) to ID people in the 'Fish at Heron' group picture, Heron Island 1957.   Mr. Les Price was a film cameraman and 16mm film-making mentor for young Ron Taylor, whose first film was the black and white television 1961-62 special "The Shark Hunters" with Ben Cropp - the first underwater shark hunting movie, at a time when Grey nurse sharks were thought the common man-eaters - thought so by the media.  A time when making any shark ID was difficult for even professional fishermen.

Ron followed with a color film "Skindiving Paradise" in 1965 for the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau despite featuring massive spearfishing scenes at a resort.  An example of the attitudes then.

"New Skindiving Paradise" (2018) is a shorter edited version. (Quality is poorer due to generational losses from the original - this version meets with Valerie Taylor's approval - below).

Valerie in 'New Skindiving Paradise' (2018)

The mini-book "Sharks and other Predatory Fish" (1959) by Peter Goadby offered the first illustrations to help separate dangerous sharks.  Goadby declined a request to reprint the shark drawings in the Fathom sharks issue.