Articles

The Bends

by Craig

Ask any scuba diver what is the one thing they fear most when diving and they will tell you it is the bends. However, if you get a group of divers together they will no doubt joke that '... we will probably all end up bent sooner or later!'. I myself often joked to friends and family that 'I'll probably just end up bent ...' and like most divers I used to think that it would never happen to me ... but it did. I got bent.

Desert Isles of the Coral Sea

by Walter Starck

It was one of those places where the forces which govern life seem to come to a focus of preternatural beauty and intensity. I stood in a small grassy field. It was bounded by a dazzling band of coral sand. Crystalline aquamarine shallows grading into turquoise surrounded the islet. Farther out, a broad shallow reef flat fashioned a skirt of many colors terminating in a hemline of sparkling white breakers. Beyond, an endless sea of indigo blue velvet spread out to the horizon. Life was everywhere.

So that's what a remora feels like!

by Ric Mingramm

The Rip is the name given to that renowned stretch of water at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, separating Points Lonsdale and Nepean. This area can be one of the most dangerous stretches of water on our continent, but at times can be so peaceful and calm that one could not envisage the hundreds of ships which have been lost in its vicinity.