The weather was overcast but the sea was dead calm, so we were able to anchor right under Point Perpendicular. I have many happy memories of this site. It is big. The bottom is made of huge boulders stacked on top of each. Honor and I dived to 32 metres cruising in and out of the passages between the huge stone monoliths. We spent the dive photographing sea tulips (Below) and anemones (above). The water was cold and there was a green tinge due to algal bloom, but it was worth it. There is something special about the the heads at Jervis Bay. Diving anywhere round here is memorable.
Honor also found a super cute baby Port Jackson shark which sucked on to any thing that came near its mouth.
Afterwards we dived the Fairey Firefly wreck off Callala. This plane crash landed after a mid air collision in 1956. The details are here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX381_Fairey_Firefly_wreck . The photo below shows a restored Firefly in RAN Air Wing colours.
The plane is virtually fully intact and there are few signs of "ratting". The parachute and compass binnacle are still in place.
By coincidence I am named after a sailor who was stationed at HMAS Albatross at the time of the wreck, and who was later killed in a car crash on the HMAS Albatross Road in 1958. He was my Uncle Alan and he is buried in the Service Graveyard at Nowra. I wonder if he worked on this plane?
When I was talking to my Uncle Noel a couple of months ago, he remembered Alan lovingly. They had served in Korea together. Alan was on board the carrier HMAS Sydney as an Aircraft Artificer, and Noel was a foot soldier at the front line. Noel was seriously injured by a Chinese grenade and spent two years convalescing.
In the meantime Alan had gone to Scotland to train as a diver with the Royal Navy, and while there he was selected for "special operations". He later enrolled in the military foreign language school at Point Cook, Victoria. Alan learned Russian and it was at his suggestion that Noel followed in his footsteps and applied to study Indonesian. They were also trained in interrogation techniques, and survival skills.After Alan died, Noel completed Officer training and had a long career as an Indonesian intelligence expert.
Two months after I visited with Noel in his nursing home, and he told me all about Alan, he passed away aged 83. I hope the brothers have reunited in death. As Noel said to me tearfully "Alan was my best mate" That was 50 years after his brother's death.
The words of the poem "For the Fallen" rang very true as Noel remembered his brother so vividly and his comrades who fell in Korea.
There are many roads that we travel in life, and they have a way of converging as we get older. I wonder if this plane is a crossroads between my Uncle and I? Were his hands the last to touch the wings before it took off? Did he give the pilot a thumbs up as he taxied away?
PS... Speaking of roads converging, who should be sitting at the table at the Berry doughnut van when we pulled up but my sister-in-law Karen and my niece Emma. Karen kindly sprang for the donut and coffee and saved me a sprint to the ATM. Thanks Karen! The planets aligned for me that day.
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