the JOHN HARDING

**Young sperm whale in trouble. Kay Overell in red suit**
A few months after we photographed a Southern Right whale and her calf underwater off Sydney Heads, this young sperm whale became stranded on a northern Sydney beach. We raced up the coast in my small boat to get some pictures, and as it turned out, to try and get the whale back in deeper water.

Nothing worked. This was the early days of whales being seen near the east coast again, (after almost a century of hunting) and before \\Greenpeace, Save the Whale\\ and \\Project Jonah\\ $$ foundations.

Why do whales come ashore? A good question.

Many friends make a guess and turn the answer into a fact.

I’ve often considered that floating oil would not be much good for any cetaceans lungs.

There’s also various acoustic disturbances (natural and man-made) which might cause **vertigo** to a sensitive brain, as it may also do to us humans.

Or it may be bacterial?

Try this. In a grassy park, close your eyes and standing upright, turn or twist 20 times as fast as possible. Make yourself super giddy. Imagine a whale with this problem 24/7.

It would not know where it was.

Jack Evans helps clean the pool while Allan Chamberlain gets the antibiotics ready.

“The first dolphin oceanarium began as a accident at Snapper Rocks ocean baths. The story was some joking friends of Jack Evans (pictured with broom) dropped a dolphin (called porpoise in error) into his swimming baths at Snapper Rocks on the Queensland – New South Wales border.

The resulting publicity and income was such, that Jack Evans went into business and constructed an oceanarium on the bank of the Tweed River, at the border holiday towns of Tweed Heads and Coolangatta at the southern end of the Gold Coast strip which includes Surfers Paradise”.

Like a military exercise. Tents, wet suits, vehicles, hot food and drink, volunteers galore. A pod of false killer whales (pilot whales) decided to commit suicide by swimming ashore. They were persuaded by \\marine councilors\\ to do otherwise.

Locals said it was the most people ever seen at any one time on Boat Beach.

We were aboard \\Careelah\\ at Yonge Reef when Valerie spotted a school of ‘dolphin’ approaching. As they got closer she exclaimed **Pilot whales**. We jumped in a work boat and followed them. Underwater I clicked a couple of frames with a Nikonos.

It was the only time I’ve swum with this species. A very rare event in 1967.

National Geographic purchased the pictures.

**Christine Danaher** of Yeppoon, Queensland shown underwater with a cooperative dolphin (in captivity), and (with canoe and coconut trees) during a safari to The Solomon Islands.

Christine voted Eupi Island Resort (below) \\”fantastic for diving and good food”\\ – she had a different opinion of another resort near Honiara where sand-flies were so thick the beach had to be sprayed with poison. To compound matters the accommodation windows were not screened for protection against those famous nocturnal blood suckers.

This was a weekend dive at the Julian Rocks, Byron Bay