But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, Save me, oh, save me, from the candid friend!

SHARK! Melbourne Aquarium. April 2011.

Despite the fact that it was the stingrays chewing on the diver's head, Henry remained as terrified as ever of the cute 'n cuddly grey nurse shark. It seems that once you've got yourself a reputation (earned or otherwise), some people have you pegged for life!

Comments

ratatouille's archives said…

Hi! Kris...
Wow!
That is all I can say...when it comes to how beautiful this photograph is and how amazing it's to view the ocean sea floor?!? too!

Shark-infested waters and I hope that you are kidding about Henry.
What a very interesting quote too!
Thanks, for sharing!
DeeDee ;-D

2 May 2011 at 14:28

Roddy said…

I will have to take Henry diving off the Williamstown backbeach where as kids we went swimming with the Grey Nurse sharks. We left them alone, they left us alone.
There were plenty of fish for the sharks to eat so they didn't want us.

2 May 2011 at 18:34

Kris McCracken said…

DeeDee, aquariums are indeed a magical place!

Roddy, the Grey Nurse is generally a pretty docile shark, but surely you are thinking about Port Jacksons?

3 May 2011 at 13:35

Roddy said…

No my son. Grey nurse. There was, and probably still is a breeding ground for them. The wobbe-gong, or port jackson is a stupid shark. I have even encountered one or two. Again, Williamstown beach.

3 May 2011 at 18:29

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

This will hurt me...

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