Shark Bait

I have always been enamoured by the ocean. As a child, my favourite TV show was Jacques Cousteau. I bought all his books and read them cover to cover. I taught myself all about the denizens of the deep – the unique flora and fauna.

As a teenager, I took a diving course and did all of the basics but I never had a chance to do the open water dives to complete it.
For years, in visiting friends at their cottages, the oft asked question was “Where’s Willie?” “Oh, he’s off playing Lloyd Bridges.” Lloyd from the 60’s TV show Sea Hunt. I would explore everywhere under the water until I’d check my fingers and see that I was getting waterlogged before finally surfacing.

It gave me great joy to introduce this amazing world to others.
My favourite was teaching my daughter, when she was seven. We were standing in water just up to her waist and I put her face mask on
the surface of the water for her to look through and see how clear everything was. “Look at my toes wiggling, Daddy!” She was in awe!

The tough part is learning how to use the snorkel without choking to death, if you get water in it and into your mouth. She mastered this, after a few coughs and splutters, in learning how to keep relaxed and blow the water out, “like a whale, honey”.

We took a break for some food and, upon our return, we couldn’t find her mask. She knew right away what had happened. “Mr. Snapping Turtle took it. He’s getting old and his eyesight isn’t too good so the mask helps him to see better.” “Yes, honey, you must be right.”

I had three dreams that I needed to accomplish: one – play the bagpipes in Scotland; two – ski in Austria; three – dive the Great Barrier Reef. Yes, I have had the great fortune to do all three!

After traveling Europe from 1982 to 1983, I headed off for a six month tour of the South Pacific. With a lady friend in tow, that later became my wife – hey, if we were still talking after living out of a knapsack after all those adventures, I guess there was something there.

One stop was Sydney, Autstralia, to reconnect with some friends I had made in Austria. While there, I decided to take a diving course and M’lady rather reluctantly agreed to join me. The school was owned by the son of a very good friends of my mother’s. They had built a small lagoon, by piling rock into walls, about the size of two Olympic sized pools, off the shore and into the ocean that they used for the practice exercises.

My instructor was most impressed with my knowledge of the equipment and my efficiency in the “doff and don” routine. For non-divers, this is where you go to the bottom and take off all of your equipment – mask, snorkel, fins and tank. Considering the chill in the ocean, we were, gratefully, allowed to keep our wetsuits on. Then you surface, take a few breaths and dive down to put it all on.

Once he was assured of my abilities, we went on a leisurely tour of the perimeter, checking out the myriad colours of fish and anenomes. The instructor stuck his hand into a grotto and pulled out an octopus. Just a wee one with a spread of about a yard. He played with it in his hands then looked at me and held the mollusk up to me with it arms flailing around. As soon as I took it into my hand, it jumped up and wrapped it’s legs around my head in a death grip. In horror, I saw its beak for a mouth, tapping at my face mask. My first thought was the horror movie, “Alien”!!!

I didn’t panic. I recalled all my readings and Jacques’ teachings. This octopus couldn’t really hurt me – it was just in panic mood and trying to defend itself from this strange large creature. I calmly started to pull its legs off my head and as it sensed I was being gentle, it loosened its grip. I held it in my hands and caressed the head then handed it back to my instructor. He just shook his head, in
astonishment, and pointed up. When we surfaced and took out our oxygen valves, he was quite incredulous that I didn’t loose it. We hit the bar and he bought me a few. I think he needed them more than I,
as he kept commenting about it. “Man, if that had happened to me…”

Next up was a deep dive. The school had also built a mini-reef, further offshore, which was teeming with life. At about 65 feet below sea level, the instructor showed me how to pick up an urchin, turn it over and chop it open with his knife. A plethora of small fish quickly gathered to gorge on its innards.

Then, he introduced me to “Max”, their pet moray eel. We didn’t shake hands but I did feed him by hand, slightly nervous about those razor sharp teeth. I was recalling that their constant opening and closing of their mouth doesn’t mean they are about to bite; that’s just how they breathe.

My only concern with diving was sharks. I was constantly a tad on edge worrying about them. Especially after watching the movie Jaws!

It was my turn to chop open an urchin and I was swarmed with fish eating out of my hand. Then I felt a huge presence come up behind me. “OH, NO!!!” I screamed inside myself. I slowly turned my head to see a very colourful six foot long grouper, who had decided to
join in the feeding frenzy. I instantly recognized him as “Gus”, another mascot of the mini-reef, from his pictures in the school rooms. What an experience that was!

M’lady did not have such a good time as I did. When I got back
to the school, I was told that she had run out of air and, after a few minutes of buddy breathing, she panicked and shot to the surface. I
gave the instructor crap as to why he allowed her to run out. He should’ve been checking her gauge.

Later that night, she complained of chest pains. I hailed a cab and we went to the barometric unit at the local university, which was the best one in the world to deal with diving accidents. After x-rays and checking her over the specialist said that her lung had a small rupture but that it had self-healed. He’d never seen this and called it a miracle that she was alive.

On my next dive I popped an ear drum. No more deep dives for us. There is still a lot you can enjoy from snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reer.

We carried on up to the Gold Coast of Queensland. The reef
starts at about Brisbane on its south end and extends up just past
Cairns (pronounced “cans” as in beer cans, the locals would tell us).
We spent six idyllic weeks cruising that long stretch. Camping
where we wanted and snorkeling when we wanted. We took one cruise where we rented an underwater camera and got some amazing shots of six foot wide clams, manta rays, pipefish and a multitude of undersea life.

I had informed my family of various mail drops for my tour and picked up a note from my mother. She had just watched a TV show about the horrors of the Reef and was in absolute terror as to me spending months there. I immediately phoned her to assuage her fears in that “I have done my research, Mom, in that this is winter on the Reef. The blue bottles, blue ringed octopus, jellyfish and sharks are very, very rare at this time of year. Plus, it’s cheaper to travel as a tourist!” I think she finally calmed down.

A most memorable event was when we signed on for a sailboat cruise that dropped us off on an atoll, along with three other couples. After setting up our tents, they all strolled over to our site. “What are you doing, Willie, tying up your food over that branch?” “Well, in Canada, if we don’t do this, the critters will take our food.” They all laughed at me. Uh, huh.

We all went snorkeling in a lovely lagoon. I popped my head up to hear one of the group yelling, “SHARK!”. We all made like Jesus – running across the water to shore. His description was of a baby nurse shark. Then one of the girls screamed. “Oh, no, now what?”

She came running up to the group yelling, “There was a huge lizard that took all of our food!” I sent the other couples to check on their sites and they had all been raided. At that point, when they were all sobbing, I spied a goanna, a six foot long lizard ambling off in to the bush. I started to laugh, much to the amazement of the group.

“What is so funny, Willie?” they asked incredulously. “You’ve been ripped off by a goanna. Now you know why I tied our food up over that branch. Why don’t we get it down, crack some champagne and relax. Don’t worry about the goanna as it is harmless to humans.”

We spent a most enjoyable few days on that atoll before the
sailboat picked us up to carry us on to the next adventure.

Did I mention the nude beaches in Oz?