Wednesday night I attended a film premier for a video titled 'Rottnest
Island, Offshore Paradise'. The event was actually for the Perth dive
industry but, as Rowley Goonan is a member of WAUPS, the committee went
along as moral support.

At his own expense Rowley has taken footage over a two year period of the
more popular dive sites around Rottnest Island. Ironic that the day before
I took a couple of Canadians over to Rotto (nickname for Rottnest Island)
to snorkel in the sheltered bays. They wanted some souvenirs so we stop by
the visitors shop with cash in hand to spend. Alas, they come out with just
postcards :-(  No reminders of all the pretty things UW, no slides, no
photos either.  Even the t-shirts were a let down. Joanie had fallen in
love with the quokas (small marsupial from kangaroo family). All the quoka
t-shirts were cartoon type ones that looked bleeding awful .. looked more
like racoons wearing bandanas than quokas :-(  So here's hoping the close-
up shots of the quokas I took turn out so I can get a print done for her.

Anyhow, back to the plot. The day they leave I attend this film premier
night & see the very thing they were looking for. So, as a Christmas
surprise Im gonna send them a copy of the video. I am also going to talk to
the Rotto tourist bureau about having some decent UW photos on sale. I
remember some of the nice places I visited in the US where they covered all
the bases in their souvenir dept. ie stick pins, hat pins, brooches, sets
of postcards, sets of photos, sets of slides, videos.

Rowley had to keep the video short, as it is really footage for the dive
tourist industry .. but it covers the island's best dive sites - caves,
swim throughs, wrecks, sea dragons, small sharks, etc. Has above water
scenes also - stingrays swimming in to the shallows to suck around waders
feet, quokas, etc.  If this video is successful & gets Rowley some decent
financial benefit he hopes to produce a better one that the ordinary
tourist can take home for their video library. One way of getting away from
a desk job eh :-))
Viv