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Sir Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur C. Clarke died yesterday in Colombo, Sri Lanka at the age of 90. While he was world famous as a science fiction writer, the creator of the concept of the satellite, and a pioneer in proposing many innovative new technologies, especially in outer space, few people are now aware of his pioneering role in making diving and coral reefs known to the public. His book "The Coast of Coral" is the first book on diving in coral reefs written in English, and describes his adventures diving along the Great Barrier Reef in 1950, in search of adventure, and he hoped, treasure. While the fame of this book led many to regard him as the first diver on the Great Barrier Reef, Arthur told me personally that when he first arrived there he met my grandfather, Fritz Goreau, who had beaten him to it, coming out of the water with my father's home-made rebreather. Arthur said that he greatly admired my grandfather, whose photographs of marine life in the Great Barrier Reef, published in LIFE Magazine in 1950 and 1951, were the first high quality underwater photographs and the first to expose the public to the wonders and beauty of life in the coral reef. Following his diving adventures in Australia he turned to diving in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and wrote another fascinating book about diving, "Serendib", based on the ancient name for Ceylon, which was regarded as such a fortunate place that the word "serendipity" is derived from it. For many years he dived every time he could in what were then the exquisitely beautiful reefs around the island, and watched with great sorrow as these were almost entirely destroyed, largely by mining for construction material in a country with little limestone resources. Arthur told me that he was so pained by this that he could never bring himself to write about corals again, and by that time he was confined to a wheelchair and could no longer dive. But he continued to be fascinated by corals until the end. He was horrified at how the world of reefs he had loved had vanished practically without a trace. As the originator of Clarke's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" he was entranced with delight by the work of the late Wolf Hilbertz and myself on electric coral reef restoration, which he immediately grasped, and he lobbied the Sri Lankan Government as hard as he could to use it to restore their coral reefs and fisheries. Sadly, they have yet to listen, being pre-occupied with other matters than bringing back their lost corals and fish. Coral reefs have lost another forgotten pioneer. Thomas J. Goreau, PhD |
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