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wallygibbins
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Name: Wally
Country: Australia
Birthday: 1/19/1930
Gender: Male
Interests: Shell collection curator, diving and salvage museum owner. Champion spear fisherman and former shark hunter.
Expertise: Australia's legend and king of the underwater world.
Occupation: 17 Feb 2009. John Sumner will
Industry: INFORMATION NEEDED. Anything
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
7/4/2005
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 Brian McKenna was a professional abalone diver at Mallacotta, Victoria. He passed away about 1983. We competed in the NSW state spearfishing championships at Currarong about 1963 together with Brian Raison, and myself (John Sumner) - our team came second. The amazing thing was that Brian McKenna had caught his fish by diving off the rocks. A very limiting factor. He did not tell us that he was without "water transport". A fitness fanatic, "Bruno" looked after his body well - and was a body builder who associated with champion like Paul Graham. The excesses of money earned from abalone diving took him regularly to Thailand which was a risky social experiment in the early 1980's. | | |
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I knew Wally Gibbins since the 1950's. We were good friends. A few years before Wal passed away (2006) we formed a partnership to buy a large boat, sail to the Solomon Islands and continue the recovery of dumped World War 2 scrap non-ferrous metals from deep water.
I was able to buy a former prawn trawler and we began fitting it out with the required salvage equipment, namely a large grab bucket.
The project stalled as Wally became ill and eventually was shelved due to lack of support from other parties.
Feb 17, 2009.
I've continued with my own interests which is mainly researching Australian shipwrecks.
Today I publish postcards showing pictures of shipwreck bells. It's amazing the interest this is creating.
It's all early days for me. Your input is invited as is any information of bells that have been recovered from Australian shipwrecks.
email: johnsumner911@gmail.com
phone: 0409 435 586
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K9 Submarine shipwreck (1940s) Fiona Beach, Seal Rocks, New South Wales Australia.
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| A bell that may be a fake. 
The original proven MINMI bell is in the New South Wales Golf Club at La Perouse, Sydney.
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