In 1985 one of our club members suggested that we hold a fund-raising activity for the Truganina Country Fire Authority brigade, to help get them back on their feet after an arsonist burned down their station and trucks. After a bit of head scratching, we decided to do a marathon dive. I was able to get the management of the Box Hill pool to agree to let us use the pool to keep a number of members in the water in relay over a 24 hour period. Melbourne Diving Services lent us a Hookah unit, and I was able to duck back the the shop during the night to fill tanks as needed. I had some plastic cards, so we were able to play poker, and patience, and some people even tried knitting...

Back in the 1980s we were still able to swim through the Cerberus, Victoria's first ironclad warship, which ended it's life as a breakwater in Half Moon Bay, Black Rock. The inner and outer hull were still relatively intact, and we were able to move along inside the spaces between the hulls and also explore the inside of the hull.

In 1984, one of the diving magazines (Australian SCUBA Diver, I think), featured an article about diving with the sharks in the Manly Aquarium in Sydney. I wanted photos of sharks, and this was a great opportunity, so I organised a club weekend up to Sydney, diving in the Aquarium on Saturday evening. We drove up to Sydney on Friday night, did the dive on Saturday, and drove back to Melbourne on Sunday. Was it worth it? Absolutely!

My photos did get better over time, and the dive club that we had started at Diversworld meant that I had opportunities for lots of time in the water. I had completed a PADI Advanced Open Water qualification at Melbourne Diving Services, and met Andrew Crosby, a friend I am still in regular contact after better than 30 years.

The William Salthouse was the first merchant vessel to sail with a cargo of merchandise from the British Dominion of Canada to British Colonies of Australia. The ship was lost on 28 November 1841 while attempting to enter Port Phillip Heads.

After completing my initial teacher training I spent a few years working (initially full-time and later part-time) for Box Hill Ski, which during Summer operated as Diversworld. I was employed to look after the diving side of the business, but I also worked in the ski shop during Winter.

I bought a Nikonos IV-A camera, and a strobe (I think it was a Sea&Sea model), and some wet macro lenses that could be added to the 28mm lense that came with the camera, and started learning how to take photos underwater.

I learnt to dive when I was 15, back in 1976. It was something that I had wanted to do for several years, and now I was finally old enough. After a medical examination and a chest X-Ray, I was cleared as fit to dive, and I could start my diving course.