It's Fun Down Below

People write, and publish, books about any mortal thing under the sun—and under the sea—these days, so it was pretty inevitable that someone should eventually come up with one for the estimated 100,000 skin-divers in the Australian midst.

OKINDIVING in Australia is written by an Englishman with a French name—Edward Du Cros —but it tells you how to do it, where to do it, and who does it, complete with diagrams and photographs and a history of the sport at home and abroad.

Skindiving is skindiving only be cause it doesn’t require a helmet and a diving suit and some men on a tender above to pump air down to you. The equipment can, how ever vary from the simple—your bare skin plus goggles and flippers —up to haversack-type compressed air bottles and even a kind of midget submarine to ride (strictly for the kind of people who, pn land, use motorised golf buggies, I should imagine).

The French appear to have been the first to have any sort of yen to walk along the sea bed for fun probably because they had the warm

and frequently calm Mediterranean conveniently at the back door.

Underwater sport filtered slowly through to Australia, although most coastal Australians are, by nature, amphibious. Spear fishing, under water photography and underwater adventure generally has really caught on in Australia only in the last dozen years.

All States in Australia now have at least one skindiving club or organisation and most of them are willing to take the novice into membership. There are also numer ous places where equipment can be bought and gas cylinders re plenished.

You will find a list of these organisations set out in the book—as well as instructions on how to catch fish, take photographs, frighten sharks and explore wrecks.

(Skindiving In Australia. Pub

lished by Angus and Robertson Ltd. Aus tralian price, 25/-.)