downunder update

A sunburn is a warning. It tells you that your skin has been burned. Ignore repeated warnings, and you may end up with wrinkles, age spots and skin cancer. Just six cases of sunburn in a lifetime doubles the chances of developing a melanoma.

Limit your time in the sun

Avoid the strongest UV periods between midmorning and midafternoon, and always wear protective clothing and sunglasses in those times. For good protection, wear loose, long-sleeved cotton shirts and hats with at least a 4-inch brim.

Sunglasses should have at least 99 percent protection against both ultraviolet A and ultraviolet B sunlight. Wearing sunglasses is particularly important when you’re around water and snow. It’s possible in these conditions to sustain a painful burn to the cornea, the outer layer of your eye, causing temporary blindness

Use sunscreen

Most moisturising and make-up products contain non-greasy sunscreens with a sun protective factor (SPF) of 15 or higher. If you don’t wear cosmetics, get yourself a sunscreen with an SPF of 15 and apply it 15 minutes before you go in the sun Don’t forget to put some on your lips.

Slop on more sunscreen after swimming and, if you’re in intense sunlight, use a total sunblock like zinc oxide on your lips, nose and ears.

Medications

Seek medical advice about any medications you take. Some medications can increase your sensitivity to sunlight. Some common medications which can cause problems are thiazide and other diuretics, tetracycline and sulfa antibioticsand nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen.

If you are burnt

If you get sunburnt, treat it like any other burn. Use cold running water and cold compresses for relief, and stay well away from the sun until the burn heals. If pain persists, consult a healthcare professional. Be sunsmart to be sunsafe. Please. Take a tip from the locals, don’t rush to get a tan. Spend a few early mornings in the sun, you’ll be brown before you know it. Remember to Slip Slop Slap. Slip on a Shirt, Slop on the sunscreen and Slap on a hat.

Stingrays (Dasyatids) are common in tropical coastal waters throughout the world. In the waters off Australia the most common are the Blue-spotted Stingray, and the Smooth Stingray.The Smooth Stingray is a bottom-dwelling species which is recorded from temperate waters of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. It’s aggressive and is easily observed by divers. This species usually has one venomous spine (the sting) halfway along the tail which is capable of inflicting severe or potentially fatal wounds. Sometimes it raises its tail above its back like a scorpion.

The Blue-spotted Stingray occurs throughout the tropical Indo-West Pacific, and is found in Australia from southern Queensland, around the south of the country and north to the central coast of Western Australia. It lives in coastal waters and estuaries from shallow water down to about 170 m. It’s often observed buried in sand or mud with only the eyes exposed.

Stingrays are equipped with a razor-sharp, barbed, or serrated cartilaginous spine that grows from the ray’s whip-like tail. This barb, coated with a toxic venom, has given them their common name. Dasyatids are not aggressive and prefer to swim away when threatened. When they do use their tails, it’s more of a mechanical reaction.

In many cases involving humans, the victims are usually stung in the foot when they accidentally step on a stingray. In the case of Steve Irwin, popular television personality, the sting from a dasyatis, probably a Smooth Stingray, punctured his heart causing causing cardiac arrest.

If you have the misfortune to be stung, get some hot water on the wound as fast as you can. First aid treatment for stingray stings starts with hot water, which eases pain and speed up the breakdown of the venom. Papain, a substance found in papaya or unseasoned powdered meat tenderizer, may break down the protein of the toxins. Pain from a sting will last up to 48 hours but is at its worst in the first 30-60 minutes.

Always keep in mind that these creatures, like others in the waters and seas of Australia, are wild creatures and should always be treated with extreme caution.

The collective noun for a group of sharks is a shiver, and rightly so. That’s what they give most of us. For more than 400 million years sharks have dominated the oceans and are regarded as a predatory killer that doesn’t discriminate between fish or humans. But if you’re worried about taking a swim, remember more people die from bee stings each year than from shark attacks. Fear of sharks has been fueled by a few rare instances of unprovoked attack and by sensationalised fiction and film until the very thought of sharks is frightening, but sharks merely maintain the delicate balance in the oceans.

There are many theories about why sharks sometimes attack people. The most popular theory is that the shark confuses us for a prey animal, we look like dinner. From beneath the surface, a surfer lying on a board looks just like a seal, and a human in a wetsuit is the same size and colour as a seal.

Surfers and divers have been attacked and have lived to tell the tale as sharks tend to take one bite and move away. We probably don’t taste the best, for compared to the thick fatty meat of a seal, .we are scrawny boney creatures, but the shark won’t know this until after a nibble.

Avoid a Shark Attack

• • Don’t swim dive or surf alone
  • Don’t swim, dive or surf where dangerous sharks are known to congregate.
  • Don’t swim in dirty, turbid, murky waters, harbour entrances, near river mouths (especially after heavy rains), deep channels or steep drop offs. These types of waters are are known to be frequented by sharks.
  • Don’t wear high-contrast clothing or shiny jewelry. Sharks see contrast very well.
  • Don’t swim near people fishing or spear fishing.
  • Don’t swim with pets and domestic animals.
  • If turtles or schooling fish start to behave erratically or congregate in large numbers, get out of the water.
  • If a shark warning is sounded get out of the water as quickly and calmly as possible.

Great Whites

The interactions that we may have are in usually close to shore with small sharks out hunting schooling fish such as snapper, but our greatest fear is encountering a Great White, the species portrayed in Jaws.

Great White Sharks are found right along our south west coastline, but generally stay in deep water as they move from southern Queensland, around the southern coastline and to the North West Cape in Western Australia. They are large, rare, and warm-blooded, the top of the foodchain, the apex of marine predators.

In Australia, the Great White is listed as a threatened species and globally. numbers have declined between 60-95% in the last 50 years. Sharks are among the most valuable and vulnerable animals in the sea but massive consumer demand for fins and other shark products have created an industry motivated by high return with ultimate, and rapid, extinction of sharks an inevitability.

For a real shark experience, with submersible bottom cage diving to the ocean floor.: Fox Great White Shark Expeditions

Australia has been sitting more or less on its own for the last 200 million years.

After separating from the ancient supercontinent Pangea, lots of unusual life forms flourished.Some of them are cuddly, some bizarre, and some are just downright deadly.

The chances of running into one of our dangerous creatures are pretty slim. You have to get out into the bush, into the interior of this great flat dry continent, or go off- track up North to mingle with our exotic wildlife.

If you’re planning to ‘go bush’ there are plenty of reserves and guided tours to take you around safely. But there are beautiful areas of seeming tranquillity, especially on the long stretches of golden sands with not a trace of humans to be seen, that entice the unwary traveller.

Beware when you are on your own. Read the Signs on beaches. Never swim at night, and never swim alone. Don’t go up close to wild animals, and never ever feed wild animals.

Danger in the water

Some people are afraid of sharks, although the prospect of being attacked by a shark is only slightly more probable than a meteorite falling on your head. Unless you disguise yourself as a seal by zipping up in a wetsuit and bravely hurl yourself into a seal pack in waters known as shark feeding routes, you’re not going to end up taken by a shark. Read the signs on the beaches.

There is another reason for the signs on the beaches. Jellyfish. Little blobs of jelly which eject poison-tipped darts that can kill a child or give you a heart attack. The sign to your right warns of Box Jellyfish.

Another creature to avoid in coastal waters is the beautiful, but lethal, blue-ringed octopus. If you spot one in a tidal pool, admire such delicate elegance from afar, don’t pick it up. Likewise, if you see a stingray, keep your distance.

Crocodiles may be the ultimate survivors but their existence becomes more precarious each year. Over 200 million years of succesful adaptation and outlasting the dinosaurs doesn’t weigh much when people are involved. Australian crocodiles are protected. The freshwater crocodile is found nowhere else and the threatened estuarine crocodile has a chance to survive here. Everyone wants to see one of these fearsome creatures in the wild but the only safe place for the experience is with accredited tour operators or crocodile parks such as Koorana in Queensland.

Otherwise, beware! Crocodiles are dangerous, and visitors who forget this have lost their lives. On average, one person a year is killed, usually by ignoring common sense safety rules.

Camp at least 50 metres away from water. Crocodiles spend much of their day basking or hidden in mud and don’t become visible until you’re up close, and that’s too close!

Look carfeully for slide marks along beaches, billabongs, waterfalls, rivers and waterholes but, above all, read the signs. Needless tragedies have occurred when warnings are ignored. The thought of a cool refreshing swim after a day in the Outback is very appealing but if a sign warns you of crocodiles, believe it ! Why take the risk?

Crocodiles are highly skilled predators. They can swim under water at 30 kilometres an hour without a sign of a ripple on the surface. They can jump out of the water to catch low flying birds, or suddenly burst out on to river banks and, for a short distance, outrun a horse. A short distance is all a crocodile needs.

If you’re going crocodile spotting, don’t go out in anything but a stable boat.

Travel quietly and always keep your hands and legs inside the boat. Never provoke crocodiles, even little ones.

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Freshwater crocodiles, crocodylus johnstoni, aren’t usually dangerous to people but they’re often difficult to distinguish when partially submerged. It’s easy to step on one if you’re not looking. A cornered ‘freshie’ will defend itself by biting or lashing with its long tail and a bite from a crocodile defending its territory will put an abrupt and painful end to your holiday. Estuarine crocodiles, crocodylus porosus, known as ’salties’, live in fresh, estuarine or saltwater environments, such as floodplains, billabongs, rivers and coastal waters. They are aggressive, extremely dangerous and have attacked and killed people. Both species are found in northern Australia, mainly across the top of Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Crocodiles are incredible creatures, a reminder of the ancient past of our planet and they serve to remind us that whole species of life forms are dying around us. Look at a crocodile with respect, he is much much older than you and I and the whole swarm of humanity now destroying his last fortresses. And when you look upon a crocodile, make sure you are with an accredited wildlife guide.

Sweetheart

A well known crocodile in Australian history is Sweetheart. He went on a rampage in 1979 attacking and overturning small aluminium fishing boats in the Finniss River, Northern Territory.

Sweetheart didn’t kill anyone, but it was deemed prudent to capture him with the intent of moving him well away from populated areas.

The process of trapping the big croc was exhausting, and Sweetheart did not recover. His body has been preserved and can be seen at the Northern Territory Museum and Art Galleries in Darwin.

Recommended

The Crocodile Hunter : The Incredible Life and Adventures of Steve and Terri Irwin