Other Hazards
Some people have a run of bad luck that defies rational explanation. When I was working in the diving industry I was asked to pay special attention to one of the divers on our boat.
She was a woman in her mid-twenties who had suffered a particularly traumatic experience at sea. A few years earlier, she and her husband had taken part in a yacht race round the Palm Islands, which are located at the inner edge of the Great Barrier Reef to the north of Townsville.
They were negotiating a passage beside a whirlpool when the yacht hit a submerged rock and broke up. Her husband was thrown into the water and swam to safety. As he clambered out, he saw debris from the yacht going round in circles.
He stood and watched in horror as it moved to the middle of the whirlpool and was sucked under. There was no sign of his wife or the skipper.
Distress calls went out from other boats in the race and some of my diving mates were called upon to mount a rescue operation. Everyone knew that "rescue" was a term used when no one wanted to talk about retrieving dead bodies.
They reached the site and recognised it from previous visits. One of my friends had explored the whirlpool area and knew it well. He figured the missing people could have been washed into a cleft in the rock platform that ran beside the pool. He dived down and found bits or wreckage jammed in the base of the cleft but there was no sign of any bodies.
That night he couldn't sleep. The thought of failing to do a proper search weighed on his mind. There was an outside chance the missing people were alive and waiting to be found.
He returned to the scene at first light and made a determined effort to penetrate the debris. This time he broke through and found the two people trapped at the top of the cleft, just clear of the water. The skipper was dead but his female companion was still alive. He thrust his air supply into her mouth and took her to safety.
Not surprisingly, the young woman was deeply shocked by the ordeal. Her husband continued to dive and it was a long time before he managed to convince her that it was safe for her to go to sea again. When she went out with me it was her first diving trip since that fateful day.
The weather was fine and the sea was calm but murky when we reached the Great Barrier Reef. The skipper anchored well away from the reef for safety reasons. He took two buddy pairs across in a small rubber boat then returned and handed the boat over to me. I went out with the husband and wife and a novice diver, for whom I was responsible as divemaster.
We checked that the boat was properly anchored and began our dive. After a couple of minutes my buddy began to show signs of anxiety. I wasn't surprised. There were sharks everywhere.
In all my years of diving I'd never seen so many in the same place at the same time. And they weren't harmless reef sharks. They were bronze whalers and some were very big. Diving in murky water is not advised when sharks are around. There's a risk they might mistake you for a seal and take a bite. I decided to abort the dive and we returned to the rubber boat.
The others joined us, evidently spooked by the sharks. The young woman was particularly unnerved. The water was no more than waste deep and she stood beside the boat, struggling to undo a strap.
Without warning, a baby shark appeared and attacked her. The small creature was so slim it was almost snakelike. I grabbed its tail, whirled it over my head and hurled it away. Moments later the little shark was back, gnawing at the woman's leg. This time I wasn't taking any chances. I sliced off its head with my dive knife and dumped the pieces in the boat.
By now we were in a state of considerable apprehension. There were sharks all around and they were agitated. As divemaster, I had to remain calm and collected … I did my best.
There was room in the boat for six people and there were eight of us. I called for a volunteer and we hung onto a rope at the rear while the woman's husband skippered the boat back. In my brightly coloured wetsuit, I felt like a lure on a fishing line.
If I'd had time to think I would have done things differently. Scuba tanks float. They could have been trailed behind the boat. There would then have been room for all of us on board.
I’ve often wondered about the young woman. Fate had some terrible ordeals in store for her. I’m told she never went to sea again … perhaps with good reason.
When I was a boy the thought of farming crocs never occurred to me. I lived on a farm in Lincolnshire (UK). Cows and chickens were the only livestock. There wasn't a single crocodile to be seen.
I might have remained blissfully ignorant of the big reptile if I'd not got hooked on astronomy at school. My fascination with the heavens led to a degree in astrophysics and a precarious career as a stargazer. The demand for astronomers isn't high and I was soon racking my brain for an alternative way to support my family.
A job as a Canberra bureaucrat provided stable employment but was boring. I resigned and made my way north to the Australian tropics where I joined the staff of James Cook University in Townsville as its press officer. I was soon writing articles on subjects as varied as oral history, wind engineering and croc farming.
Now, it's one thing to write about exciting subjects. Getting involved is entirely different. So, when my wife heard me talking about the soaring demand for crocodile hides, she became alarmed. We were staying with my friend Paul on his property in Queensland's northern gulf country.
I should explain that the term property is used to describe a stretch of land that would be called a ranch in America. Paul's property was a quarter the size of Belgium but don't think of him as fabulously rich. The huge area was worth no more than a few moderately priced housing blocks in suburban Sydney.
The land was in Australia's savannah belt. In the monsoon season it floods. During the remaining nine months of the year it goes from green to brown to black. The last being when wild fires go through.
Paul was a grazier. He kept cattle and that was becoming increasingly difficult. There was a time when he mustered on horseback and drove his animals to the nearest railhead. Those days were gone. The government had embarked on a campaign to eradicate the twin scourges of brucellosis and tuberculosis from the northern herds. Droving spread diseases and cattle had to be trucked. That meant catching them.
One day Paul invited me to go out with his workforce and watch them round up some bullocks. In my naivety I expected a bunch of leathery-skinned men with wide-brimmed hats and elastic-sided boots. In the event, the only leathery-skinned man was Paul. His entire party consisted of himself, his ten-year-old son, Angus, and a nineteen-year-old Maori lad on a work-experience program. I later learnt that the young man's father was a vet and wanted his son to gain experience of real animal husbandry before going to uni and learning about it there.
Paul directed me to a jeep that had seen service during the Second World War. I got in on the driver's side and was looking for the ignition key when a voice brought me to order.
"Shove over, mate!"
Angus appeared by my side. The kid had been raised in adult company and didn't know how to behave like a child. I moved over and he took my place at the steering wheel. There were blocks on the pedals to accommodate his short legs and a cushion to get the rest of him high enough to see over the dashboard. I sat in the passenger seat and the nineteen-year-old crouched on the bonnet. Paul followed in an old cattle truck.
We were going after the bullocks that had been expelled from the herd by their dads and uncles. The young animals were hanging around in creek beds where the grass was still green and there was water for them to drink. They watched with puzzled expressions as we approached. We could have come from another planet. They'd never seen anything like us before. Big, doleful eyes registered bewilderment then alarm.
One turned and the others followed. Angus hit the accelerator and the jeep shot forward. The front was padded with old tires. The aim was to exhaust a fleeing animal and knock it over.
The outcome was never in doubt. One of the bullocks tired. Angus delivered a glancing blow with the tyres. The exhausted animal rolled over and the Maori lad grabbed it by the testicles. Moments later, Paul appeared and placed a halter round the animal’s neck.
That night, as we were having dinner, Paul admitted he was practising a very primitive form of animal husbandry but had no other options. In a year things would change. He'd shoot his entire heard and the government would compensate him. When the area had been declared disease free, he would restock with certified animals. That got me to thinking about crocodile farming.
A few weeks earlier, I'd interviewed a group of scientists who were working on research programs aimed at introducing new industries to the Pacific region. Crocodile farming was one of them.
In those days, a top hide from a three-year-old crocodile was fetching about $200 on the international market. That compared favourably with what Paul was getting for his cattle. Processing was straightforward. There was no need to truck the crocs to an abattoir. You were allowed to shoot them. Hides stacked flat so transport wasn't a problem. Paul would have to shoot his herd as part of the disease eradication program. Instead of leaving them for crows and eagles, he could feed them to crocs.
The sums worked out a treat. Crocodiles are cold blooded. That means they don't expend energy keeping warm. In fact, they don't expend much energy at all. Most of the time they lounge around in muddy pools waiting for their next meal to come along. As a consequence, much of what they eat goes into bodybuilding. Shoot a bullock, put it in a freezer and feed it, bit by bit, to a crocodile hatchling. Within three years, the last of the bullock will be eaten and you'll have a crocodile with a hide big enough to sell to the French fashion industry.
Paul asked if the hatchlings were prone to disease. I said they were extremely hardy. Baby crocs are accustomed to swimming around in one another's excrement. You could keep hundreds in a small pool and they'd remain in good health. And there would be no trouble finding dainty morsels for their tiny palates. All you had to do was hang up lights above their pools at night and moths would crash in under their own wing power.
On the other side of the table, our wives watched apprehensively as we sketched out plans for a joint business venture. Paul's wife was the first to speak.
"Won't it be dangerous?"
That was rich. Didn't the woman have any idea of the perils her family faced as bull wrestlers? I opened my mouth to speak and got a warning glance from Paul.
"Where are you going to get the eggs from?"
I said the government issued permits that allowed you to collect eggs from crocodile nests.
"What about the big bulls that guard the nests?"'
She had a point there. Daddy crocs can be very attentive when it comes to guarding the next generation. I said we'd wait until dad had gone off for a bite to eat then I'd sneak in with a collecting basket and grab some eggs. Paul would stand by with a gun in case dad got back earlier than expected.
That did it. My wife announced, in no uncertain terms, that I was not going to get involved in crocodile farming. It was far too dangerous and she wasn't going to take the kids away from Townsville to live in the bush. I'm a very obedient husband and bowed to her superior authority.
In the weeks that followed, Paul did a careful investigation of the croc project and decided to stick with the industry he knew. That was probably wise. Years later, a symposium on crocodile farming was held in Townsville and I got speaking to some of the participants.
They told me that most successful operations are run as subsidiaries of chicken farms. The reptile disposes of heads and other parts that supermarkets won't take. Easy access to waste from trawlers is also an advantage because crocs cannot live on chooks alone ... an occasional bite of fish is needed.
The Japanese refer to their crime syndicates as yakuza. Most people know they exist but think their chance of meeting a member is minimal ... especially on an overseas trip.
I live on the Gold Coast in Australia and have Japanese friends. We recently organised a barbecue for a visiting party of ladies from Nara. We picked a local park as a suitable place to entertain them. I arrived early, with some of my surfing mates and laid claim to one of the barbecue stands and surrounding tables.
Nara is an ancient city just up the road from vulgar Osaka and smelly Kobe. It is a very refined place, overflowing with temples and cultural centres. The ladies made a point of saying that, while their husbands worked in Osaka, they resided in far more gentile surroundings.
My surfing mates were a mixed bunch of young Japanese and Australians. The ladies seemed to get along with the Australians but a couple of the Japanese guys caused a bit of an upset. They came from Kobe where people speak with accents that are upsetting to refined ears.
The barbecue got under way and everything was going smoothly when a group of Japanese men began to congregate nearby. One was elderly and dressed in a smart business suit. The lads from Kobe took an immediate interest in him.
They told me the yakuza had arrived and the old guy was an oyabun, or godfather in mafia parlance. One of the Nara ladies joined us and was informed that the yakuza were holidaying on the Gold Coast and had brought their most senior member along with them.
The lady was dismissive of the claim. She insisted that the thuggish looking men were factory employees on a works outing and the elderly man was almost certainly the works manager. The Kobe boys said she would soon see what they were talking about.
Now, I’ve heard of the secret signs that Free Masons use and I’ve been subjected to some strange handshakes in my time but when it comes to funny greetings, the yakuza leave the Masons for cold.
As each newcomer approached the elderly man, he bowed respectfully, lent forward and tapped the old chap’s testicles. The lady from Nara didn’t know where to look. I guess she knew factory workers were uncouth but had no idea their behaviour sank so low. She hurried to the other ladies then returned insisting we relocate to a more agreeable place.
I must admit that I was taken by surprise. Not so much by what happened but by the way the Kobe boys predicted it. I shouldn’t have been. I can identify members of Australian criminal gangs from their appearance ... and I’m not just talking about bike gangs.
The criminal classes have a sense of identity. They dress the part and behave the part. Public servants, academics and a heap of others are no different. You can pick them out and predict how they will behave. I have been an academic and I’ve worked for the government. Individual departments feud with one another and so do the crims. Needless to say, it gets very messy when the yakuza fight.
Dress sets the Yakuza apart but it doesn’t stop there. They have a fascination for tattoos. Intricate designs cover every inch of their bodies, except the parts that protrude beyond the cuffs and collars of their business suits.
One of the Kobe lads recalled how he once tried to gate crash a hot-spring party in a posh resort. Hearing male and female voices on the other side of a bamboo fence, he left his all-male pool and, suitably unattired, slipped through a narrow gate. Beautiful young women frolicked with older men. He strolled towards them and was about to jump into their pool when tattooed figures grabbed him from behind, spun him round, and hurled him back the way he had come. His mates said he was lucky to return with everything intact.
Rumour has it that, in former times, the tattooed skin of dead yakuza was peeled from their bodies and made into lampshades. The Kobe boys reckon it still goes on. They say it is a great honour to be turned into a lampshade. They point out that politicians have statues erected in their memory. Past presidents of Rotary have plaques inscribed. Yakuza are commemorated with lampshades.
I asked about sliced fingers. I’d read about it. The practice is a variant on IRA kneecapping, which was a punishment inflicted upon individuals who failed to do as they were told. The Kobe boys said that finger slicing is self-inflicted and shows remorse for getting things wrong.
The yakuza are sticklers for law enforcement. So, if the oyabun tells you to go out and shoot someone, it is important to get it right. If you shoot the wrong person, you have to admit your mistake. You do this by cutting off the end of a finger and placing it in a small box with a note explaining what happened. You say you are humbly sorry and will be more careful in future. The Kobe boys say they know people with bits of fingers missing
It is tempting to think that life in a tropical jungle is idyllic. You imagine that there are none of the stresses of modern city life. You think the plants and animals live in harmony. There surely can’t be any nasty back stabbings or grabs for power.
It’s not like that.
When it comes to a fight, the leafy jungle is just as competitive as the concrete jungle. No holds are barred in the race to the top. In the concrete jungle the ultimate prize is money and power. In the rainforest it is sunlight and power.
Plants need sunlight to prosper and some need a lot. That poses problems if you start life on the forest floor. As a lowly seed you won't make it to the top unless a gale blows down mummy and daddy ... a bit like waiting for the boss to die.
This gloomy scenario applies to most rainforest trees but not the strangler fig. In corporate terms, its strategy is takeover followed by asset stripping. It issues an attractive share offer (figs). The birds (punters) act as intermediaries. They take the figs, digest the bits they want and discharge the rest ... otherwise known as toxic assets.
The toxic assets (seeds) are deposited in the upper branches of a potential victim (tree) and sprout. The seedlings have a place in the sun and prosper at their host's expense. They plant roots in their host's bark and sap its strength.
Their next trick is to send down aerial roots. These reach the forest floor and dig themselves in. The fig's life as a strangler has begun. Shoots spring up and envelop the host. Sometimes they invade the ruins of old buildings.
The outcome is always the same. The host dies and the fig takes its place.
6.5 Outback Travel (Australia)
The Outback is Australia's "Never Never Land": If you never never go you'll never ever know what it's like. But where the hell is it?
That's a frequently asked question and you'll get a heap of different answers from a heap of different people. City folk talk about their outback cousins but the cousins don't necessarily see themselves that way.
Eighty percent of Australians live within a few hours’ drive of the sea. When you leave the settled areas on the coast and travel inland you enter a different world. The trees get smaller, woodland gives way to scrub and scrub to semi-desert.
The huge, sparsely inhabited interior of Australia stretches all the way from the eastern coastal mountains to the Indian Ocean. It is about the size of the USA (minus Alaska). On the map of Europe, it would reach from the Atlantic to the Black Sea.
When I use the term outback I'm talking about Australia's vast dry interior. There are few bitumen (tarmac) roads and few settlements. Names on the map may be no more than that. Sometimes, when you reach them, all you find is a post with a name on it. Bear this in mind when you go travelling. If you have an accident, help may be further away than you think.
Most outback towns have populations numbered in hundreds rather than thousands. The exceptions are mining centres such as Mt Isa and Broken Hill. Apart from mining, the only major industry is cattle and sheep grazing. Homesteads are frequently fifty or more kilometres apart and reached by dirt roads.
Homestead kids receive their early education, via the internet, through the School of the Air. Older children attend boarding schools in the cities.
Over much of the interior, the majority of people are of Aboriginal descent. They live in small communities and own large tracts of land. You require their permission to enter these lands.
Some people think the outback is boring. Others find it fascinating and I'm one of them. It is so totally different from the crowded world in which most of us live. Life is different and so are the people. Some have roots that go back generations. Others were born overseas or have parents who were born overseas. They come from all over Europe and Asia but have a lot in common. When you live in a remote area you have to be resourceful and that shapes the person you become.
Driving in the outback has a lot in common with driving anywhere else ... until something goes wrong. It is easy to forget how vulnerable you are as you drive along, cocooned in air-conditioned luxury. It's as well to remember that people die in the outback when their cars break down.
Aboriginals whose ancestors roamed the lands have died of thirst on their way home from a trip into town. Workers on cattle ranches have got lost and died of exposure. If they are vulnerable, think of what could happen to you as a tourist in a strange land.
For the average traveller in an average vehicle:
1 Keep to the bitumen (tarmac sealed roads) whenever possible. There aren't many and they carry a fair amount of traffic so you shouldn't have to wait too long in the event of a breakdown or accident.
2 Carry lots of spare water. I use 2-litre plastic milk bottles, which are easy to pack amongst luggage.
3 Take a mobile phone but don't count on reception everywhere. Better still: take a satellite phone.
4 Take spare fanbelts, spare radiator hoses and jump leads.
5 Make sure you have enough petrol to get between filling stations. Don't assume you will come to one before your tank is empty. And bear in mind that the filling station might be out of your sort of fuel. If that happens go to the local police station and seek advice. On two occasions, I’ve had my tank filled by a man in police uniform with a key to emergency supplies.
6 Never drive off the highway.
7 If you do breakdown, stay with the vehicle unless you are one hundred percent certain that help is nearby and you can safely walk to it.
8 Don't attempt to walk anywhere in the heat of a hot summer's day.
9 Bear in mind that accommodation is not as easy to find in the outback as in the more densely populated parts of the country and in some places you have to provide your own in the form of tent, caravan etc. Plan your outback travel accordingly. Make sure you secure your night's accommodation at least a day in advance.
Planet Earth has experienced a series of mass extinctions. Up until now, they have been attributed to external causes such as comets from outer space and internal causes such as super volcanoes.
Now, it appears that we are witnessing another extinction. It is taking a while to swing into action. There is nothing new in that. The earlier extinctions didn’t occur overnight. They took a few thousand years to work their deadly course.
Every year, the list of extinct species grows. Some are plants. Others are animals. We get upset when a cuddly creature is no more. We fail to notice the millions of microbes that accompany it to extinction.
Yet these microbes keep the wheels of life turning. They are everywhere and they are vital for the most basic of life’s processes.
There’s no political clout in microbes. No one is going to change their voting habits because a primitive lifeform, with an unpronounceable scientific name, has gone into oblivion.
And there is surprisingly little concern for collapsing sperm counts in young males (Chapter 5.3). Perhaps that’s because there is no political mileage in telling young men that their testicles are smaller than their dads.
The same problem is occurring in other species but they don’t have a vote and their purchasing power is zero.
We need to get real.
There is far more at stake than too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is just one of the many contaminates that we are inflicting on our planet.
GOOD ANIMALS DON’T FOUL THEIR NESTS!
Caption. The image is of those magnificent clowns: Skwert, Siren at al. The words are mine and they are not new. They have been around for a long time.
If you are worried about what might happen to you, think about the seals. They can’t drop out for a bite to eat without running the risk of meeting a big, white-bellied, ravenous brute who is also looking for a bite to eat. Same goes for the fish.