S H A R K S 1970s (John H Harding)

 

 

 

 

 

Filmed by Ron Taylor  - JH Harding devised this stunt of holding or riding the whale shark tail. (Uncredited in Innerspace TV series 1980s)

 

                                         Ron Taylor The Gold Coast (1967)

 

84. SS YONGALA Bell salvage Wally Gibbins with Ben Cropp).

Ben and Wally share the same birthday date, 19th January.

 

82. SS F.P.B. (Saumarez Reefs) RUNIC (Middleton Reef)

81. RON ZANGARI 1962 The Swain Reefs with Captain Wally Muller

 Two Ron's, Zangari and Ron Taylor (1963)

Zangari holds the shaving mirror for his captain.

Barbless spear (1962) Ron Zangari poses in one of Ben Cropp's historic photographs.  Ben was using Ron Taylor's camera for these pictures as underwater photography was in it's infancy -  the Calypso Phot not yet available in Australia.

Ron Zangari and the Tiger shark which should have made him famous.

Captain Wally Muller back in The Swain Reefs (1967) and now a spear fishermen.

Ron Zangari was deckhand aboard 42 foot Riversong had a 12 foot 6 inch beam.. Built in 1947 by W. Beattie of Mackay.  The freezer could hold 4,500 pounds of frozen fish fillets.

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 Gannet Cay weather station (The Swain Reefs).  An example of how sand cays move - the weather station was initially in the centre of the cay.

 Ron Taylor filming at the Man and Wife rocks, Yeppoon  Qld  (1963) with Ron Zangari.

Ron Zangari with a good catch at Fitzroy Lagoon (1964)  Brian Rodger from South Australia at right.

Blue spot trout in The Swain Reefs.

Captain Wally Muller - by chance dropped anchor of his charter boat Coralita on an enormous starfish infestation in 1974, the location he said was 'two reefs east of Mystery Cay', The Swain Reefs.  Another smaller infestation filmed for Movietone News was at 'Lavers Cay' - (reef names by Wally Muller were not retained on GBRMPA charts - which gives little or no recognition to this original explorer who sailed these dangerous waters pre GPS from the mid 1950's. aboard his 'Riversong' a lugger-style fishing vessel.

Wally Muller's mentor was Clarrie Nuffer who's vessels were "Sunray" and "Ocean Reaper" (source Ron Zangari 2019)

80. (RARE) GREEN SAWFISH © JH Harding

Green sawfish. 

We were on a diving safari on the New South Wales mid north coast. 

A fisherman in Wooli Bowling Club told our friend, John Bonney of “a five meter-long monster” tangled in his deep water fish trap line a few kilometres north at the Sandon River pinnacle.

Fisherman Keith Knox of Minnewater NSW failed to recognize the catch and was quite frightened of what he saw without a face mask. We helped bring his catch home the next day with our twin 40 hp outboards doing the work his boat could not handle. As fishermen need to do, the ‘monster’ was disposed of – it was a prize catch. The ‘meat’ sent to the fish markets in Sydney, the ‘saw’ retained as a souvenir by the fisherman, the late Keith Knox of Minniewater near Wooli, NSW.

He spoke of the encounter for many years as a great adventure. This is first and only sawfish any of us have seen alive and underwater to this present era. My photographs recently ‘surfaced’ and signed by Valerie posing with my speargun (with multi-barb spearhead suitable for smaller fish). A tongue-in-cheek picture. A satire on ‘sea trophies’.  © JH Harding (1967).

1. © JH Harding (1968)
2. Mondo Sommerso (Italy)  The leading marine and diving magazine in the world 

John Bonny and Janet Kingsbury having photo fun posing.   

First view - hopelessly tangled and still alive.  Today we'd delight in setting it free.  Things were different in '67.

John Bonney and Janet Kingsbury in the shallows back at Minnewater (1967

Janet Kingsbury often compared with Janet Leigh of Hollywood fame.