Alex Muller, note the hard-work hands on a then15 year old
Wally Muller had two sons who were left ashore during their school years. Both were anxious to use scuba on trips with dad aboard Coralita.
Wally devised a simple rule to test their water ability. A test that all scuba instructors should have adopted. He said: “You can try diving on scuba when you can free dive ten meters deep”.
Nobody should be allowed to dive on scuba until they pass this simple test.
Alexander Muller appeared in documentary films about sharks that were being made from aboard his father’s charter boat. He received at least one credit in the title of a Ron Taylor shark film.
Deckhand Richard Weir (who represented Australia in the World Spear Fishing Championships, Chili) was so impressed with Alex’s fearless attitude toward sharks while spearfishing.
“He’d hold any struggling fish against his body and fight the sharks off with a speargun” said Richard, “he wasn’t going to let any shark beat him to the catch”.
(Remember how one ‘famous’ underwater naturalist confessed in an interview that ‘he’d panicked at the sight of a white tip shark in shallow water blocking his return to shore’.
The sharks Alexander was fighting were Grey reef whalers – not the less dangerous (to unintentionally bite), white tip reef sharks.
At one time young Alexander was creeping up behind people and shouting “BOO”. It was a stunt used so often that led to his nick name Boo still in use by his many friends and mates.
(It is also the name of a city in Sweden).
Another time Alexander had come aboard direct from three months work aboard a prawn trawler. His hands were badly knocked about from fish and prawn spines and other sharp objects. In terrible condition for a young man.
It didn’t seem to both Alex in the least.
He was a tough kid then and it has never changed.
Some of his many adventures are quite amazing. Like his father before him, he is now a professional fisherman working out of Yeppoon, Queensland.