73. NORTH REEF LIGHTHOUSE (1968) - Capricorn and Bunker Group

 

North Reef lighthouse was manned by three men in 1968

Kerosene lamp powered the North Reef lighthouse in 1968

View from North Reef lighthouse in 1968

72. SEAFOOD MENU - (in Traditional Chinese (Taiwan),English, Japanese)

Surprise. Whale shark fin stew or Whole shark fin stew on the menu.  I think it's 'whole shark'
Whale shark is protected almost everywhere.

Certainly protected in Taiwan for more than 10 years.

To convert.
New Taiwan Dollars 1000  (NT $1000) is about $44 in Australia.  (AUD$44) in August 2018.

For the record, we had Peking Duck (aka Beijing Duck).  Shark fin soup is a bit of a novelty. Interesting to see the prices - lower than commonly screamed about by celebrity chefs on You Tube.

Shark fin soup.Taipei in 2010 <click

 Framed display of various shark species fins.

The shark fin soup debate seems to have run out of steam - stale news now. There has been an element of fake all along.  It's been picked-up and copied by well-intending conservationists with no experience in ocean matters.

As the value of shark meat increases and the catch rates of  usual fish decline, the previous waste of sharks (where only the fin was taken) has stopped or delined.

Whole sharks with fins attached are legal.  With fins removed at sea is illegal.

Big consequences when the law is broken.  Not just for the fishermen involved but for their home country with bans of their entire seafood exports.

So live sharks with fins removed is almost a thing of the past.

I noted that Taipei shops (in 2017) who previously had many shark fins for sale have toned down their displays.  The menu shown here illustrates that nothing has changed it's just less obvious.

Banning shark fins by an entire country has been a publicity stunt (a bit like banning bottled water) which will ultimately put the product 'under the counter' or on a private restaurant menu.

71. HENRI BOURCE "Savage Shadows"

Henri Bource with a copy of his film.  Film buyers market show in Melbourne circa 1985.

70. ANGRY SHARK CHEWS OUR BOAT (2004)

 Witnesses to the event and the only other boat in sight were three indigenous fisherman.  The guys responded to our anxious shouting. when the shark that was BITING OUR BOAT WAS REFUSING TO LEAVE.

Witnesses who responded to shouts for help.

The only pictures.  Video camera failed. 8:30am 26 September 2004 Batt Reef
(off Port Douglas).

 Page 3, The Daily Telegraph (New South Wales)

69. SOLO FISHERMAN - (1964) Wally Muller

Saumarez Reef,  240 miles east of Yeppoon, Queensland.  Short clip of fishing scenes edited from Ron Taylor's "Slaughter at Saumarez" documentary.  Music without narration.

68. SIR CHARLES HARDY GROUP

Sir Charles Hardy Group (Google maps)

Ben Cropp filming on video, a mystery shipwreck site Cockburn Reef..

67. CAIRNS FISHING 1970s

                                                 Tiger shark about to bite camera lens port.

                                                                        Lizard Island - a first view (1967)

16mm film frame

Story and pictures in Walkabout magazine.

 Denis "Brizaka' Wallace, Peter Bristow, Peter R. Wright

The big game fishermen from USA discovered Cairns, Queensland in the late 1960s thanks to these three and their mentor, George Bransford.

Hotelier Paul Kamsler (senior) upgraded his motel to a standard not previously seen in Australia.  This was The original Trade winds.

In 1972 for example, when I arrived to make a fishing film,  there were just three decent restaurants in Cairns plus The Tradewinds.

A string of very old hotels in the area we called The Barbary Coast.

A Chinese restaurant that took a lot of courage to dine there.

This was the Cairns that billionaires (in today's adjusted monetary values) came to visit. The fishermen would charter a game fishing boat plus a 'mother ship' to live aboard at night and work their way north through The Ribbon Reefs as far as Lizard Island for their ten or two week safari seeking the giant Black Marlin - in that early era regularly caught at 1000 pounds or higher.

 

Cairns was changing quickly.  New large hotels in the early 1980s, The Tradewinds replaced by the Pacific International - now run by the Kamsler sons with Paul Senior in his own office within the hotel as the unofficial Austrian ambassador.

                                                             Captain Peter Wright (1970s)

John Frankenheimer A Hollywood legendary Producer-Director who remained a low-profile when in Cairns with many his friends in the fishing clique.

                                         Peter Bristow and Peter Wright (visiting) in Madeira.

65. WALTER STARCK PhD En route to Australia (1972)