DIVE LOG AUSTRALASIA FEB 2025 ISSUE 410

It’s good to see that the leafy seadragon has resurfaced on the postage stamp front again after some 39 years. The seadragon featured on Australia Post’s 33cent stamp back in 1985. It is now featuring on recent $1.50 stamps as South Australia’s marine em blem. The leafy seadragon was adopted as South Australia’s mar ine emblem in 2001. Not to be outdone, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands have issued post age stamps featuring hermit crabs. Visit page 18 at https://austra liapostcollectables.com.au/stamp-bulletin/stamp-bulletin-391 for more details. Seadragons are not the only attraction for divers at SA’s Rapid Bay jetty. Although most divers get to experience a seadragon sighting, Leafy or Weedy, on their dives, sometimes the lack of a seadragon sighting is more than made up by other sightings. The sighting of a large Maori octopus out in the open, for example, recently made JB’s dive special. As if that wasn’t enough, JB also experienced the attention of the normally shy Senator fish twice in three weeks.The ‘Diving into The Past’ display of the Society for Underwater Historical Research’s Holdfast Bay Project in the 1970s has now reached its 25 th anniver sary at the Bay Discovery Centre at Glenelg. The display still looks great and relevant. There is no good reason why it can’t continue for years to come. The display features two ‘divers‘, and lots of the artefacts found during the project. The video footage on the TV screen in the display is well worth watching. The Society for Underwater Historical Research became the South Australian Archaeology Society in 2012. It now exists only as a Facebook social group, although there is still a website for blogs of interest. The new “Rodney Fox & Mark Tozer Marine Conservation and Re search Centre” is an exciting new initiative that aims to transform the way we protect and study our marine environments. I recently heard that new interpretive signage (plus a garden and a meeting circle) has been unveiled at Apex Park in Kingston South east, “transforming the site of a 1966 monument that once solely blamed the Tanganekald people for the Maria massacre, without providing further context”. This “initiative sought to present a fuller, more balanced narrative of the events, addressing the limitations of the original memorial, which was one of the few monuments mark ing the rare massacres of Europeans by Aboriginal people”.

According to https://www.tellingthewholestory.org/ , “the existing National Trust of SA plaque, originally unveiled in 1966, which marked the 1840 massacre of the shipwrecked survivors of the barque Maria”. The NT Labor Government and the opposition, the Country Liberal Party have announced bipartisan support to phase-out commercial gillnets in the barramundi fishery in the Northern Territory by 2028 is “A huge step forward to saving sawfish and speartooth sharks (& turtles, dolphins and dugongs) in one their last viable habitats on earth”. “By 2025 the Northern Territory Government must imple ment the following: Gillnet-free zones critical habitats in Van Diemen Gulf and southern Gulf of Carpentaria to stave off any threat of localised extinctions of sawfish and speartooth sharks. Cameras on all boats to ensure good data on the fishery and en dangered species. A threatened species strategy that actually protects threatened and endangered species.”Now that my illness prevents me from diving anymore, I can reflect on my achievements over 44 years of diving. For example, I’ve had a few ‘single’ experiences involving diving. I’ve only dived overseas just the once, although it was actually two dives in Hawaii. I’ve only dived in NSW just the once, and that was a shark dive in Manly Aquarium (if that counts). I only ever did just one dive trip in Victoria, a dive out in Bass Strait with a follow-up dive at Phillip Island. I’ve totally missed out on diving in WA, Queensland, or Tasmania, etc... I hope to be able to expand on my diving experience in future columns. My Basic Scuba Course in January 1978 changed my life entirely. It led to me joining my club for life, now known as the Marine Life So ciety of South Australia. I soon became involved at committee level. I became even more involved when I took on the role of newsletter editor. The only thing that compared to my love of diving was my love of writing about it. It was through MLSSA that I later became involved in the Scuba Divers Federation of SA, another group that became a huge part of my life. It led to some 3 ½ decades of participation, most at commit tee level. I was National Treasurer for the SDF of Australia for a couple of years. All this led to me being awarded the inaugural life membership for the SDFSA. I also received life membership with MLSSA. I am officially member No.1 (001, or whatever) for both MLSSA & SDFSA.

89

www.divelog.net.au

DIVE LOG Australasia #410 February 25