Mike Ball Dive Expeditions
I remember perfectly the day I first saw the Great Barrier Reef. I had just transferred from our Pararescue Base in Victoria to the newly opened Townsville NSCA (National Safety Council of Australia) Base to start a Pararescue Team in Queensland, when we got a call to attend a diving accident out on the Reef. I sat in the Bell 212 and was amazed at how beuatiful the Reef was, especially flying low level, we hovered above the Dive vessel Watersport and Iwas winched down to attend to the incident. In strange circumstances that was to be my introduction to my next Employer, Mike Ball some two years later.
A few months later Mike Ball had sponsored an underwater race from Townsville to Magnetic Island( some 8 Kms) and the only safety requirements were you had to have a safety boat, be buddied up, bouyed to the surface and all tank changes were to be underwater, there was to be no surfacing once the race had started, only at the end at Picnic Bay Jetty, Magnetic Island. There were various military, sport diving, and enthusiasts making up the challenge, and my buddy, Garry Thorpe, and I blitzed the field 4 hours 31 minutes, 1 hour in front of the next team. Visibility in the bay was only 2 mtrs, but we just put our clearance diving training to the test, and went for it.
Another race we won was the Mall to Mall race, Picnic Bays mall had just been completed and on a Beautiful Sat morning in Townsville, Goeff Carr and I had our start in Townsvilles’ mall, radioed the chopper, which was sitting in a park a short distance away, we were on our way, piled in, flew low level and rappelled out onto the finish line in 8 mins 58 secs, much to everyones’ amazement as everyone else was still making their way on jetskis and boats.
I remember as I was changing over my Navy diving to civilian diving(PADI) and doing PADI Divemaster and later Instructor qualifications, whilst I was still with Pararescue, I would go out and do short 2 day trips on Watersport. Back in the late 80′s regulations were no where near as what they are today. Mike had a shark feeding station set up on the Inner Reef, at Wheelers Cay, and as I had a very healthy respect for Sharks, it came as a surprise that the Trip Director, Murray, had asked me to help him do the shark feed. I remember asking the Engineer what the go was with this Shark feeding as I wasn’t that keen, but after that initial training, I have to admit I loved hand feeding sharks, but remember these were not Great Whites, just reef sharks, still, big enough to do damage, and over the years I ended up working with Mike and taking the feeding to offshore Remote reefs such as Flinders, we never had any problems and something I looked forward to every week. I miss it to this day.
I ended up leaving Pararescue after 4 years, it was a great life getting paid well to jump out of planes with 60 kg of gear strapped to you, shuffling to the door on jump run, squeezing your body and gear out into to the 110 knot slipstream, waiitng for the jumpmaster to slap your back and yell JUMP, hoping your parachute opens okay, lowering your Medical pack down from behind your legs, and taking a bearing of the vessel or liferaft before your down in between the whitecaps, to work with Mike fulltime as Part time Skipper and Instructor. I stayed with Mike for 8 years, being given the honour of delivering his newest Dive Boat ‘Spoilsport’, from Western Australia to Townsville and being her first Fulltime Skipper. We carried 28 passengers and 11 crew out on 7 to 14 day trips to diving the remote Reefs in the Coral sea, with 5,000 ft Vertical dropoffs, unlimited visibility and big pelagic fish.
An amazing part of my life, and when I catch up one day with Mike I won’t be able to thank him enough for that wonderful journey.
