The Coast of Coral

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Neither of us had ever possessed a driving license; indeed, I had never driven a car. After a concentrated course of lessons a sympathetic inspector from the Police Traffic Branch certified us as safe to be on the roads, a verdict with which I privately disagreed. Indeed, as soon as my license had been filed away I decided to have noth­ing further to do with so obviously impracticable a method of transportation, at least until completely automatic steer­ing and obstacle avoidance had been perfected. Keeping my license in reserve in case of emergency (and if I drove it would be an emergency) I then handed the car over to Mike, together with full responsibility for the parking tick­ets that thereafter were to roll in with monotonous regu­larity. In Sydney, we soon discovered, it is illegal to leave a car anywhere—but anywhere—in the central area. As the public transport system is almost as bad as that of New York, this creates a situation in which the unhappy traveler spends much of his time trying to escape the notice of a diligent but very unpopular corps of men—known as Brown Bombers—who prowl the streets with notebooks jot­ting down number plates. They jotted down AEK942 at least six times, and it was a great relief when we were able to post their final warning back to them from the safety of a New York address.

  Despite these hazards, and others which we were yet to meet, our beige-colored Chevy sedan was an invaluable asset for moving heavy air cylinders and underwater cameras, and for getting us to otherwise inaccessible beaches. We (i.e., Mike) drove it several thousand miles around Syd­ney before we finally set out for the north during the last week in March.

  Even had we been ready, we could not have left earlier. From January to March is the rainy season, referred to throughout the north as “the Wet.” This year abnormally heavy rains had brought the worst floods since the country was discovered. Several lowlying towns had been almost wiped off the map, and millions of dollars worth of damage had been done. The roads to the north had not merely been blocked; they had frequently been eliminated. We had to wait until this havoc had been rectified, and we were gloomily aware that the countless tons of mud and debris swept out to sea by the flooded rivers would ruin underwater visibility at the southern end of the Reef.

  It was a fine sunny morning, giving no hint of the recent rains, when we squeezed the last box of flash bulbs into the car and headed north toward Brisbane. After some discussion, we had chosen the coastal route—the Pacific Highway—rather than the inland road. We had been warned that this was in poor condition, but at that time we did not realize what a road had to be like before the Australians considered it “poor,” and we were anxious to keep as close to the sea as possible. It was a gamble, and we lost.

  The road was fine for the first two hundred miles or so; then it literally went to pieces. First the macadam surface began to disintegrate, so that every few yards Mike had to take violent evasive action to avoid potholes which might be anything up to a foot in depth. After a few more miles, there was no sign that there had ever been any macadam; we were driving over a plain dirt road, creased with innumerable corrugations where the rivulets of rain had dug their tiny channels. The aftermath of the floods was everywhere: bridges had been damaged and their parapets half torn away by rivers twenty or thirty feet above their nor­mal level; creeks were still littered with debris and their slopes caked with mud. We very soon ceased to complain to each other about the state of the road, but accepted thankfully the fact that there was a road at all. The expe­dition might have turned back there and then had we guessed that much worse was yet to come.

  Our first goal was not Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, but the little coast resort of Coolangatta, about sixty miles to the south, on the border of New South Wales. One crosses the state border under a large notice which warns the traveler that the importation of live rabbits into Queensland is illegal—a reminder of the days when this unwisely introduced rodent menaced the state’s agriculture, and it was necessary to erect thousands of miles of rabbit-proof fencing to protect the great sheep farms from being overrun.

  Coolangatta is an attractive little town set on one of the magnificent beaches of the south Queensland coast, and we had been invited to stay there by the first of the many hospitable friends we were to meet in Queensland— Charlie Mustchin, possessor of one of the most compre­hensive science fiction collections in Australia. It is sometimes a surprise to those who judge science fiction by the crude and often hideous magazines displayed on the sleazier newsstands (forgetting the contributions to the genre of Ste­venson, Doyle, Kipling, Wells, Foster, Huxley, Orwell...) to discover that its readers can be staid and sober citizens, respected by the rest of the community and showing no other sign of mental aberration. Charlie was a prominent building contractor with a quiet sense of humor and a charming family, and seemed only too glad to let Mike and me take the shine off a brandnew apartment he had com­pleted on the very morning of our arrival.

  The fact that I had a foot so firmly in two camps—that of the underwater explorers and that of the science fiction enthusiasts—sometimes made life rather complicated, and was particularly confusing to newspaper reporters who often couldn’t decide what line to take in their interviews. It also resulted in not a few underwater explorers starting to read science fiction, and in quite a few science fiction “fans” (a horrid but convenient word) descending cau­tiously into the depths with mask and goggles. It was at Coolangatta, indeed, that we used one of them as a guinea pig in an experiment which I rather hope no one else will try to repeat.

  The victim was Frank Bryning, a professional editor and a leading member of the Brisbane science fiction group. Frank, who is in his forties, will not take it amiss when I say that no one would imagine him to be an athletic or adventurous type, but it seems that he is one of those per­petually young in heart who are always willing to try anything new.

  Coolangatta is near the mouth of the River Tweed, which flows out to sea under a breakwater pierced with short tunnels through which the rushing waters surge to and fro with such impetus that the unwary diver can easily find himself caught in their suction. It is not particularly difficult to swim through these tunnels, if you catch the current when it is heading in the right direction. If you mistimed your entry, however, and were caught in the mid­dle when the current reversed its flow, it could be very unpleasant even if you did not run out of breath before you could extricate yourself. The walls of the tunnels are completely covered with razor-sharp barnacles and oyster shells which can slash the unprotected skin to ribbons. I made just one dive through the breakwater, to see if I could do it, and then left it severely alone.

  Inside the breakwater is a deep submerged valley through which the river flows out to sea. It was on the slopes of this valley, about fifteen feet below the surface, that Mike decided to give Frank Bryning his first diving lesson.

  Frank had never been underwater before, but it was not hard to get him in. He was fitted with face mask, flippers, and a borrowed Porpoise unit and then, to quote his own words, “assisted by three strong men, picked a laborious way over the rocks like an aged Martian in Earth gravity for the first time.” Mike, wearing one of the three Porpoises that the manufacturers had loaned us, accompanied him into the water and they both disappeared in a cloud of bubbles.

  The remaining members of the party remained on the breakwater; we could not see what was happening down there on the bottom, but the steady stream of bubbles—two streams—assured us that all was well. After about ten minutes, however, no one had reappeared and it seemed to me that far too much air was bubbling up to the surface to be accounted for by a pair of divers who were doing nothing but sitting on the bed of the river. I dropped back into the water to see if anything had gone wrong.

  Frank and Mike were sitting on the bottom, each with a large rock in his lap. They had unharnessed their breathing equipment, and were now in the process of swapping mouthpieces, like a couple of Red Indians exchanging pipes of peace. Mike was giving all the instruc­tions in sign language which he made up as he went along
, and Frank—who had received no warning at all of this underwater transposition—seemed to have no difficulty in understanding. Once he got a little flustered, and showed some anxiety to get back to the surface, but Mike just piled another rock into his lap and prevented his escape.

  It requires a good deal of confidence, when you are underwater, to remove the mouthpiece through which you are being supplied with air. When you try to replace it, you are up against the problem of getting it back between your teeth without filling your mouth with water. Most novices trying the experiment for the first time end up spluttering ignominiously on the surface—and this even after they have had plenty of practice with the equipment beforehand.

  Yet Frank seemed to be managing without any diffi­culty, and went trustingly through the unrehearsed routine of taking out his mouthpiece, holding his breath until he had exchanged it with Mike’s, and then completing the operation by swapping air cylinders and harness. Even this last stage is not as easy as it sounds; unattached cylinders try to escape from your clutches while you are underwater, and buckles put up a stiff fight against opening or closing. In due course, to the astonishment of his waiting friends, Frank came back to the surface wearing Mike’s unit, and vice versa. To this day we have not decided whether the whole episode was a greater tribute to Mike’s ability as a sign-language instructor, Frank’s aptitude as a pupil, or the foolproof design of the Porpoise units.

  Our stay in Coolangatta was also enlivened by Charlie Mustchin’s discovery of some youthful indiscretions of mine in deservedly defunct magazines, and by a visit to one of the few platypuses (platypi?) in captivity. This ex­traordinary little beast, which is an egg-laying mammal with a beak like a duck, was apparently designed for the express purpose of confusing naturalists. The specimen we saw, like all its kind, was extremely shy, but took much delight in wrestling with a mop that its keeper lowered into its pool. At the click of a camera shutter, however, it would dive out of sight and take a couple of minutes to reappear.

  If the platypus was designed to madden naturalists, the koala bear, which we met for the first time at the same animal sanctuary, must have been designed to delight the hearts of children. No one can see one of the animated Teddy bears without wanting to cuddle it, and indeed they are completely docile and good natured. They spend much of their time crawling slowly through the eucalyptus trees which provide their sole source of food, or curled up in motionless furry balls which are quite difficult to see among the leaves. When frightened they will cry like ba­bies; like kangaroos, they are marsupials, the mothers carrying their tiny infants in pouches. It is hard to believe that these enchanting little beasts were once slaughtered in thousands for their fur.

  We were preparing to leave Coolangatta on our way to Brisbane when the rains came once more. The second cy­clone of the season, Bertha (Anne had already done a good job a few weeks before), came roaring in from the Pacific and the skies began to fall. The storm did not last for long, but as usual the rivers promptly flooded, and we got barely halfway to Brisbane before we found that the road was six feet underwater. There was nothing to do but to turn back and try again the next day.

  This time we succeeded, though we had to get out and push on one occasion when the car stalled in water that was luckily only a couple of feet deep. And so under cloudy, lowering skies we drove into the capital of the Sunshine State.

  Brisbane is a pleasant subtropical city, well laid out and not, like Sydney, so crowded that even the pedestrians have to battle their way along the streets. Even in the center of the city, there seems plenty of room for everyone.

  We had been booked into a hotel which, as it turned out, was a temperance one. Now both Mike and I have a total alcoholic intake of perhaps a quart a year, and regard ourselves virtually as secret teetotalers. But we disapprove of compulsory prohibition, and regard the right to buy a drink for our pals as one of the essential freedoms. However, what lost this hotel (which in other respects was quite a good one) our future patronage was a clever little gim­mick which I have never met before or since.

  There were two lights in our bedroom—a main overhead light and a table lamp between the beds. When the table lamp was switched on, the main light automatically went out. I recommend this niggling economy—which probably cost more in extra wiring than it saved in electricity—to any hotel keeper desirous of antagonizing his guests. It inspired us to invent yet more penny-pinching brain waves which we thought of suggesting to the management—such as slotmachine metered bath water and rationed toilet paper.

  The same hotel, we were later told, had once been the scene of a piquant episode from which it is very difficult to draw any moral. It seems that, rather surprisingly, a theatrical touring party was once staying there, and that during her toilet the leading lady suddenly became aware that she was being observed by a Peeping Tom. Hearing her screams, the male star promptly rushed to her rescue and, using the first weapon that came to hand, knocked out the offender in the best tradition of knighterrant and lady-in-distress. Right, however, could hardly be said to have triumphed, for the hero was promptly ordered to leave the hotel.

  The weapon he had used was an empty beer bottle...

  We spent two weeks in Brisbane, following up the con­tacts we had already made in Sydney and Canberra. The Underwater Spearfishermen’s Association of Queensland was kind enough to make us honorary members, after we had given it a screening of our color slides and movies, and its president, Lyle Davis, saw to it that our expedition was properly equipped with the exceptionally powerful guns which bear his name.

  Underwater guns are of many types, but fundamentally they all depend on the use of stored energy to shoot a harpoon (usually attached to the gun by a line) into the target. Compressed air, explosives, powerful springs, rubber bands—they have all been used. For simplicity and ease of maintenance, however, it is hard to beat the rubber-powered gun; Lyle’s design incorporated two thick rubber cables, and had the unique advantage that if either of them broke it could be readily replaced while the hunter was still in the water. The gun could also be easily loaded while one was swimming, as the two rubber cables could be tensioned one at a time. (To have stretched them both at once would have been a feat comparable to Ulysses’ stringing of his bow.) Mike, who had used many spear guns in various parts of the world, went into raptures over Lyle’s piece of underwater artillery and could hardly wait to try it out on the biggest fish the Reef could offer.

  It was in Brisbane, in the quite literally fishlined office of Tom Marshall, the Government Ichthyologist, that the shadow of Hans Hass first fell across our path. “Have you heard,” said Tom, “that Hass is due out here at the end of the year?”

  Mike and I looked at each other with very thoughtful expressions. We both had a great admiration for Hans (and for Lotte) and were extremely anxious to meet him. But we also knew of the resources and experience he had acquired in fifteen years of underwater exploration, and the news that he was heading for the Reef filled us with considerable alarm. This was the sort of competition we did not care to face, and we could only hope that our book was safely out before Hans could catch up with us.

  We had arrived in Brisbane without any definite plan of action, confident that when we had spoken to the people on the spot, we would soon discover which were the right places to visit and which the right ones to avoid. So it turned out; after a conference with Mr. Ferguson, the Di­rector of the State Tourist Bureau, we had mapped our itin­erary along the Reef and had decided that we would make our first contact with it at Heron Island, in the Capricorn group. We had to wait a week before the boat could take us across, but there were plenty of things that had to be done in that time.

  One of the most important of these was contacting the Great Barrier Reef Committee through its secretary, Dr. Do­rothy Hill, at the University of Queensland. The G.B.R.C. is a scientific body concerned with the investigation of every aspect of the Reef; when we arrived on the scene it was in the process of setting up a Marine
Biology Research Station on Heron Island. The laboratory was still under construction, but we were offered what facilities were available and gladly accepted them.

  So, in the middle of April, over roads still bearing the marks of yet another storm, we set out for Heron Island and the southern boundary of the Great Barrier Reef.

  VIII

  Out to the Reef

  From Brisbane the Bruce Highway runs north along the coast of tropical Queensland. The word “highway,” however, no longer conjured up in our minds the picture of long miles of smooth cement. We were not in the least surprised when, a couple of hours after leaving the city, we were once more bouncing on corrugated dirt. The trailer we were towing, which was packed with the heavy compressed-air cylinders, gave us some anxious moments, and after one particularly bad bump there was a violent crash as the rear light came adrift. We didn’t bother to pick up the fragments.

  As some compensation, the country through which the road wound its way was attractive and interesting. From the crests of hills we caught occasional glimpses of the sea, its waves marching against beautiful but lonely beaches which, a generation or so from now, may be as famous as Miami or Waikiki. Most of the time, however, we were ten or twenty miles inland, passing through plains covered with the gaunt skeletons of gum trees that had been killed by bush fires years before, but which still stood in countless thousands. Farther north, the land was very fertile, and we entered the sugar belt, the gum trees giving way to vistas of red earth and green canes. Apart from the exotic crops, I might have been back among the rolling hills of my na­tive Somerset.