|
Edward du Cros was educated at Rugby and Gonville and Caius
College, Cambridge, where he read law. In 1948 he came to Sydney and took
up skindiving. During the war his service was with the Royal Artillery
and the Guards.
Few Australians can tell of a diving career so varied, ranging from
the design and testing of new equipment to the exploration of a flooded
gold-mine in Borneo, from the.t filming of sharks, to the pursuit of that
subtle delicacy, the abalone. In 1955 he helped to bring up the museum
relics from the ill-fated Dun bar, and his submarine adventures have taken
him beneath the surface in such diverse places as Cornwall, the south of
France, Tasmania, Victoria and Lord Howe Island. His wife shares his amphibious
habits, and she too is equally at home on land and in the water. |
.......................................................................... |
|
SKIN
DIVING IN AUSTRALIA
Edward Du Cros.
Angus and Robertson
(Publishers)
Pty Ltd, Sydney.
First published
1960. No other editions.
Hardcover, dustjacket,
180 pages, many mono photographs. No index but includses several appendicies
including a decompression table.
The author was one
of the early pioneers of diving in Australia. Based in Sydney after migrating
from England, Edward Du Cros took up diving and was involved in the recovery
of relics from the Dunbar off Sydney heads in 1955. The book is perhaps
the earliest to be published describing the recreational and, in part,
the commercial diving scene in Australia in the fifties, and is thus a
most valuable book in our recorded history of the sport.
From the fly:
Skindiving is one
of the fastest-growing sports in Australia, and an Australian book on the
subject by one who knows it thoroughly will fill a need that is growing
with the sport. The author, Edward du Cros, is one of the earliest members
of the New South Wales Skindiving Association, and for a time was editor
of Australian Skindiving Digest. In 1953 he became an Aqualung diver, and,
three years later, an underwater photographer. He has made dives in such
places as Cornwall, France, Tasmania, Victoria, Lord Howe Island, and is
rated as one of Australia's most experienced skindivers. The book will
he valuable for the novice, the experienced skindiver, and anyone interested
in the various branches of the sport. There are chapters on the history
of skindiving; skindiving equipment; tactics and technique; the fish the
diver may meet; sharks and how they affect the skindiving picture; SCUBA;
wrecks, salvage and treasure trove, and underwater photography. Details
of Australian skindiving localities, clubs, and associations, and appendices
giving such details as minimum length of fish that may be caught, and decompression
tables, round off a book which is essentially practical throughout. For
those who have a general interest in skindiving and particularly those
who wish to explore a new world under the sea Skindiving in Australia will
be an indispensable companion. |
Alick Wickham is
not a household name. He was never mentioned by the over-enthusiastic commentators
at the recent Sydney 2000 Olympics. I doubt that Ian Thorpe or Michael
Klim would know of him, nor anyone else who has ‘done the Australian crawl'.
But Alick is credited with introducing the crawl to Australia just a year
or two into the 20th century. He was a young fellow on a visit from the
Solomon Islands. In Sydney he beat anyone who cared to challenge him. In
Melbourne is was challenged to dive from a 100-ft tower into the Yarra
River. When he arrived, he found the tower to be built on a 105 ft cliff.
He made the dive, and set a world record that stood for nearly forty years.
He was a also a great skindiver, and probably introduced many white Australians
to the sport. The islanders of the Pacific had been diving for many
centuries - for how long they had actually speared fish whilst underwater
is uncertain, but it was long before the western world even contemplated
the feat. The Australian aborigine speared fish, but from shore, or a dugout
canoe. There is no known record of indigenous people spearfishing, however
folk lore has the aborigine using a short reed to breath through whilst
swimming underwater to catch water fowl by their legs.
It is fitting that
du Cros includes Alick in the first chapter of his excellent book, even
though there is no specific mention of his skindiving activities. Spearfishing
skindivers appeared in Australia around the late 1920s, their spearguns
powered by strips of motor-tyre tubes. Masks were make from round glass
inserted into one end of a short car tube section, the other end cut to
form a strap. Fins and snorkels were rarely seen. Denny Wells could
lay claim to being one of the earliest skindivers, taking to rocky shores
off Sydney in the late 1920s, well before Guy Kilpatrick taught Hans Hass
how to dive. The sport developed further after the second world war,
and continued enthusiastically after a visit by Hass in 1953. In that year,
‘Aqualungs' became readily available in Australia.
Even
in these early days, spearfishing was a ‘controversial' activity, and many
professional fishermen saw their livelihood in jeopardy from these adventurous
aquanauts. Of course, their logic was unreasonable and unfounded, but it
does show the fear inherent in people ignorant of the facts. Seeing some
of the photographs of speared giant cod, black cod, blue grouper, and wrasse
may inflame the passions today, as it should, but we have to remember
that in the early days of spearfishing, it was regarded as sport to kill
the biggest. Even the well-known photographer, naturalist and dive guide
Alan Power is seen with a spear through a six foot bronze whaler. Alan
would shudder at being reminded of these days.Today, common sense and
conservation have come to the fore and there are restrictions on what can
be taken - and only for food of course. |
.
Times have changed since
these
large black cod were taken. |
Du Cros's book, published
in 1960, was the first of its kind in Australia. His initial history of
the sport is brief, but he successfully manages to entwine a history of
the early days of skin and scuba diving in Australia into a basic text
book on the sport, remembering that there were no Australian "how-to" books
around, although many Australians would have been able to purchase the
American Fawcet series of books on skindiving and scuba diver. (See later
for a review of these books).
Equipment, tactics
(of spearfishing) and techniques advise that "owners of rubber suits should
lay in a good supply of talcum powder"; "good marksmanship is of great
value to the spearfisherman"; "hyperventilation experiments should only
be attempted by experienced divers, and should never be attempted without
planning and preparation"; "it is dangerous to use ear plugs when diving
with SCUBA equipment".
Sound advise, but Du Cros does not deserve my apparent cynicism, as his
advise in ‘tactics and techniques' is, in general, just as important now
as it was half a century ago. He censures indiscriminate killing of fish
and respects the unwritten laws that were prevalent in these times. He
condemns the fool who shot a huge friendly grouper on a wreck by "... a
man growing bored with the search for knowledge, losing his zest to explore,
and giving way to the temptation to kill, another squeeze of the ready
trigger-finger".
In these ‘early days',
men dominated the sport. And, apparently, for good reason. "Women probably
possess a more highly developed fear of the unknown...they have less determination
to get to the fore in the sport and excel at it. Another reason might be
that the tendency toward exhibitionism present in many women is not adequately
catered for in this sport". Hey, don't go crook at me - these are Du Cros'
words, not mine.
Chapter
5 gives a brief summary of the major sport fish in Australia, and of course
there has to be a chapter on sharks. After all, this is an Australian book!
"In Australian waters, and also overseas, sharks have exacted casualties
from skindivers that amount to a figure so small as to be almost negligible".
Its the ‘almost' that gets me. |
.
Triple-27cf tanks. And this
'monster' is a rare oarfish which of course deserves to be killed for a
photo-shot and as a trophy!. |
But Du Cros continues
with an interesting essay on sharks, and encounters therein. "When a shark
eats a human being, it is either an accident, an experiment, or a case
of a shark that has lost its youth and agility needed to catch his ration
of fish, and is spending the evening of his life on a diet of sea garbage".
Rodney Fox may have something to say about this. Du Cros mentions and quotes
from V.M. Coppleson's classic Shark Attack, rebukes a few of the
myths, and rightly complains about the popular-press reporting of shark
sightings - every one is a tiger shark, and all at least twelve feet long.
(When I was a lad, all shark attacks in Victoria waters were by the Grey
Nurse. Absurd!) Unfortunately, du Cros becomes rather complacent when he
states that "In Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria shark dangers
exist, but the position is not serious". This is fairly broad statement,
but he continues with the absurd comment that "In New South Wales, it is
usual for a skindiver to meet only one shark in about thee years of
diving." (His italics). That's a silly statement really. And are there
no sharks in Tasmanian waters? He doesn't list the various species of shark,
and makes no mention of the Great White, which has, in just the previous
week of writing this review, been responsible for two deaths in South Australia
within five days (the victims were surfing, not diving).
It appears that du
Cros has bundled all sharks together with the one label, and makes little
mention of the many relatively harmless species found regularly in tropical
and temperate waters. In spearing a harmless and sedentary creature such
as a carpet shark, du Cros offers a rather remarkable observation:
"... youthful skindivers
are keen to prove their manhood, and show themselves in a good light to
their friends by spearing and landing large carpet sharks. In their favour
is the point that many of our social problems are caused by the failure
of the 'civilized' nations to provide their young men with proving and
initiating procedures. Our cousins, the 'backward' native peoples, are
well aware of the value of these customs".
I thought that's
what cars and pubs were for! He postulates a theory that the taking of
carpet sharks and wobbegongs could result in a demise of the lobster population,
a theory that could have some merit. The case studies at the end of the
shark chapter are interesting.
In discussing the
use of scuba equipment, du Cros asks and answers the question, "Does the
development of SCUBA
equipment mean the end of the full-dress diving suit and helmet? Most emphatically
it does not. There are still many purposes for which the older type
off diving equipment is the most suitable. The heavy helmet and boots plant
the diver firmly on the deck of a wreck or on the sea-bed and enable him
to stay still and use his tools. He also has a suit that will resist the
cold for long very long periods, and telephone contact with the surface."
Kirby-Morgan has the last say on this matter. The advice given to scuba
divers is reflective of the technical development of the sport, expected
safety standards, and economics. "Most Australian divers carry a depth-gauge
attached to their wrists" (what, both of them - sorry); some diving clubs
advise the use of a snorkel clipped on to the harness"; - and he speaks
of cylinders of 27 or 42 cubic feet charged to 2000 psi.
‘Wrecks, Salvage
and Treasure Trove' is an interesting chapter, and one dear to my heart.
He mentions the Dutch wrecks off the WA coast with the comment that "The
chances of a large treasure strike by our Australian underwater men are
not very promising. ... the Gilt Dragon appears to be swallowed
up for ever". Graeme Henderson can have the last word on that comment.
Some of the more popular wrecks are mentioned: the Dunbar is well covered
and the information on the early relics recovered is important; the more
recent Gwydir appears to have been popular with Sydney divers, and the
John
Robb, Norma, and Star of Greece in South Australia. The Tasmanians
have the Katherine Sharer, the convict ship George III, and
the Lintrose. Queenslanders have the Delhi Queen, Scottish Prince,
Cambus Wallace, Alberta, Marietta Dahl and Young Australian
- and the early discovery of the Yongala is interesting. Unfortunately,
he makes no mention of Victorian divers, and their wealth of 19th century
immigrant ships.
In Chapter Ten, du
Cros covers ‘The Sport Australia-Wide', and whilst he acknowledges that
the sportdiving commenced in New South Wales, he mentions many men who
were prominent in their respective states - Bob Wallace-Mitchell and Commander
M. Batterham in Victoria, Dick Charles and Don Linklater in New South Wales,
Fred Aprilovic in Queensland just to name a few. Underwater photography
gets a chapter of its own, covering early equipment (twin-reflex camera
in housing), theory and technique, and the early cinematography of Noel
Monkman who was possibly the first to shoot an underwater adventure film
in Australia - called Typhoon Treasure. (Monkman wrote the best-seller
Escape
to Adventure). I was surprised to read that Eric Jolliffe, the great
Australian cartoonist, was an avid spearfisherman. Chips Rafferty is mentioned
at great length (as he was), working with Noel Monkman. And Alan Power,
well known to anyone who has dived the wreck of the President Coolidge
in Vanuatu.
Skindiving in
Australia concludes with a directory of clubs, dive shops and sports
stores selling dive gear, and airfill stations.
Readability: well
written with an occasion attempt at eloquent opinion.
Classic rating:
I'd give it a seven out of ten, as is an important book with regard to
early Australian diving.
Availability: A
copy sans dust jacket turns up fairly regularly, less so with a
clean dust jacket - scarce but not rare.
We have copies in
stock. See second-hand books.
|