the JOHN HARDING

We were on a diving safari on the New South Wales north coast. A fisherman in a club told us of “a monster” tangled in his deepwater fish trap line. He failed to recognize the catch and was quite frightened of what he saw without a face mask handy.

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 souvenier 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. The photograph recently ‘surfaced’ and was signed by the glamourous young model posing with my speargun for this tongue-in-cheek picture.

A satire on ‘divers and their sea trophies’, extendable to all fishermen, all over the world.

Photos: John Harding collection

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.