ME MATE RON AND THE BIG SHARK CAT, #2. Far too much for one page. THE BIG BROWN MANTA RAY. When you are hauling your traps from 38 fathoms you are a very busy crew. You're pre-occupied with ‘steaming upstream', ensuing the trap rope is winding on the windlass proper, your not standing inside the coils. Slowly your bounty is coming up to meet you. Is it a "pay", will it be loaded with fish, or will it be dud? Most times you will score, although to a lesser than greater degree. The Manta Ray saga takes place on a rarely seen phenomenon; "oily blue water and good conditions". The head bubble has been recovered and it won't be belong now. And then a couple of one meter long ‘sucker fish' appear, they seem to be circling like scouts, diving down towards the up-coming trap and then re-appearing close to the surface. The rule of thumb suggests that the bigger the followers = the bigger the host. Any fisher person will tell you that Remora Fish, or sucker fish, follow large marine creatures, like bloody sharks, we are watching in trepidation to what these "followers" are following. Not ‘Old Wall" again, not that old bronze whaler, the terror from Brunswick Heads, we soon find the answer to our dilemma. The clear blue waters will soon tells us. We can slowly make out the fish trap below the boat, and then we can distinguish a very large marine creature arising out of the depths. It seems huge, for some time the identity eludes us and then it becomes obvious, it's a big brown ‘Devil Ray', a huge Manta Ray. With no apparent effort it seems to slide upwards, its escort of sucker fish is close in attendance; it seems to hover in the water. We are besotted by its beauty, the ever watchful big eyes, by the distinguishing features of its mouth, by the huge wing span and the colour? All underwater pics I have seen seem to indicate a dark grey to black colour, our wonderful animal is dark brown. Our big fish comes to within 3 or 4 meters from the boat. But then we realize we have to retrieve our trap, the Manta and entourage seems to wait until we have our catch on board. Then slowly our vision slides slowly into the depths and a thought awakens; these animals eat small stuff, was this apparition just being curious? Just as curious as us? How big? 3 meters across we recon' COASTAL STEAMERS AND CLOSE CALLS. Well I have described a few monsters ‘of' the deep, but believe me there are quite a few monsters ‘on' the deep. There is no clearly defined corridor for coastal shipping traffic. The many cargo and passenger vessels that ply the ocean will be seen steaming way out on the "horror zone", or sometimes a matter of 4 / 5 nautical miles from shore. When you see one of these huge steel monsters coming towards you, ok you duck for cover. Two names come to mind the TOYOTO MARU, and the IRON MONARCH. THE ORE CARRIER. More years ago than I care to contemplate, I witnessed, on and off, the construction of a mighty boat called the IRON HUNTER. She was being built at the Whyalla Ship Yards in South Aussie. I worked in water treatment technology at this time, story in (http://www.johnfarls.com), OTHER JOBS. There were several bulk iron ore carriers built for BHP around this time, IRON BARON and IRON MONARCH come to mind. 55,000 tons dead weight, huge steam turbine driven they were, they will eventually ply the world with Australian bulk iron ore and pelletized iron ore. I was not to realize that several years later I would come face to face with "the HUNTERS" sister. It is on record that several small fishing boats, including fishing / prawn trawlers, have been cleaned up by coastal vessels, lives have been lost. At the same time, many daring sailors have been saved from certain death by these marine monoliths. SEE YOU AROUND THE TRAPS. This little account of little boat V big boat happens on a day of absolute visibility, Blue Ocean, what a great day. Certain unusual conditions are prevailing; no tide, no wind. Ron and myself have "discovered" a line of fish traps in 38 fathoms, we know the owner. In fact the owner's boat still works out of Brunswick Heads. Now it is not unknown for fishermen to cruise around freshly baited fish traps, the "burley trail" etc. We are hand lining, however we have set the anchor, the occasional fish is boated, when way, way down the creek a substantial vessel is seen approaching, probably 8 / 9 n miles, the bow appears to be heading directly for us. No problem, no danger. The odds of collision are minimal; the big bugger will see us and veer a degree or two and alls well. These boats will travel through the water at 15 / 18 knots, we have got a matter 30 minutes or so to move if we have too, but why worry? The mathematical odds of convergence are in our favor. Now I must further describe the weather conditions; genial up and down motion, light off shore wind, blue water, no tide. The ‘no tide' will indicate just that, no movement of the prevailing southerly current, the tide that moves from north to south in our neck of the woods. These conditions present one notable factor; the "head gear", the bubbles and attached ropes are all hanging seaward. You will not often see this. And so with one eye on the approaching boat and one on fishing we sit there anchored. ALL STRIFE AND BUBBLES. You can clearly discern when a vessel is on a collision course, sometimes you can see down the port side and sometimes down the starboard side. This will alternate, when it is a continuous motion the worst case scenario is about to hit the fan, this big bugger is coming straight for a little speck in the ocean, LIKE US!!. Probably she is 1000 metres away and it's all hands to the anchor, no time to haul the bastard on board, we start the motors, we attach a plastic bubble to the line and cut the rope. I guess we motored 200 meters seaward and watched this huge red painted mongrel plough right through the spot we had been minutes before. The incredible amount of water that the bulbous bow displaces has to be seen to be believed, it pushes an unbroken wave ahead of around 3 / 4 metere high, there is a negligible bow wave. All this time the monstrous bow is carving through the head gear of our mates fish traps, one by one the ropes and bubbles are disappearing under the "IRON MONARCH" as she has been identified.  We don't see anybody way up there on the ‘fly bridge', not a soul, the only person we see is the cook empty a bucket of scraps over the stern as she passes, you can clearly here the sound of serious machinery inside the bowels of ship. As she passes us the water boils and becomes extremely turbulent, and remains so for many minutes as she disappears slowly north. WE can't believe the close encounter we have been subjected to. It is incredible to see this huge vessel from such a close vantage point. And then it's clean up time, up to the surface the bubbles and mangled ropes start to re-appear, Ronnie and myself salvage what we can and re-attach the head ropes to the depth bubbles. When we finally complete the patch up job we slowly begin to understand the close encounter, a lesson well learnt. We probably thought it time to call it a day at this stage, salvage our anchor and head home, we did manage to contact the owner of those traps, one could only imagine the tossing around they took. Now that was the ‘daytime' experience, wait there is more, many more.

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