Lost diver found on rocks - Barragga Bay, New South, Australia

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

I think it is a problem with their page. If you disable CSS and it will show the article. In Firefox you click View -> Page Style -> No Style.
Silly question here - where do I find "View"?
 
Thanks for all your kind words and support... I taught Bruce how to snorkel at the same dive site when he was 14.
Still trying to process it all but just when you think things couldn’t get any worse fate has one more cruel twist.
Major bushfires near Bermagui and across the far south coast region.
We were without fuel, power, phones internet for past 4 days... no comms at all!
On advice of Rural Fire Service and SES I have evacuated extended family (incl Sam the Border Collie!) to Tathra staying at friend of my other brother Ross.
Arrived an hour ago.
So we are safe at present but worse to come 42C and high winds forecast tomorrow.
Will continue to monitor and may need to move family further to Bega or even Eden if it really gets bad for evacuation via Navy like what happened at Mallacoota.
Have fuel food and multiple exit plans if it all turns bad tomorrow.
Keep you posted...
G

RIP Bruce. Condolences to you, family & friends. Pray for better weather.
 
Well we survived the fires OK, three nights evacuated to Tathra... they came very close to Barragga Bay but thankfully did not burn with the intensity of larger fires nearby.
Tathra 1.jpeg

Local shop stayed open as long as possible for essential supplies...

Tathra 2.jpeg

Where all 9 of us were holed up for three nights... sprinkler system on the roof drenched whole place.

Walking Sam Tathra.jpeg

Walking Sam to stop him fretting

My sister-in-law Lysanne's property up near Bombala was not so lucky... the entire place was burned out but at least the new main machinery shed with heavy plant and equipment was OK.
Fire damage 4.jpeg


Fire damage 5.jpeg


The fire was so hot it melted glass and the aluminium gearbox housing on a motor bike ran off in a puddle on the ground!
Fire damage 1.jpeg


Fire damage 2.jpeg


Due to the fires and major road closures, Bruce's funeral was delayed to January 20... which very sadly was also their 30th wedding anniversary.

The full Coroner's Report won't be available for months, but the family was officially told he suffered a massive heart attack in the water and drowned... he was only 57.

He was found gently placed by the waves near this rock pool, and the single tree forms a perfect memorial.

Barragga Bay 2.jpeg


Bruce was a NSW DPI Hunting Compliance Officer and his many colleagues formed a guard of honour.
I think we gave him the best send off possible, it was a full house with many heartfelt eulogies... he was very well known in his local community of Batemans Bay.

Bruce DPI.jpg


His daughter Ella read a poem by the poet Robert Frost which I think summed up Bruce's passion for life and the great outdoors well...

The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.​

His was a life well lived, and he passed from us doing something he loved.
Bruce will remain forever in our hearts...

I'll miss you mate.
 
What more can we all hope for, than to be well loved and memorialized in such a beautiful way. My condolences to you and your family, for the loss of such a man too early in life.
 
When it is my time, I hope my family and friends will gain some peace and solace from one of my favorite quotes:

And in the end it's not the years in your life that count; it's the life in your years. ” —Abraham Lincoln

Like Lincoln's quote, I suspect your brother squeezed every drop of life from his years, and brought joy and love to all who knew him.
 
Well we survived the fires OK, three nights evacuated to Tathra... they came very close to Barragga Bay but thankfully did not burn with the intensity of larger fires nearby.
I'm glad to read that y'all survived the catastrophic fires as well as so many couped up in that little house. Much was lost, but I am confident that you'll recover well.

The full Coroner's Report won't be available for months, but the family was officially told he suffered a massive heart attack in the water and drowned... he was only 57.
A sad loss, but the luck of a bad draw it seems. I'm also glad that you finally got to honor him with a gracious interment.
 
There is absolutely nothing I can say that would mitigate the magnitude of what you are going through. I will keep you and your family in my prayers.

Just know that tears have been shed for you and yours on the other side of the world.
 
Today is a sad first anniversary for our family...

We finally received the Coroners Report just a few days ago which confirmed the cause of death to be ‘ischaematic heart disease in the context of immersion’ as expected... which has provided some closure.

CT scans revealed ‘the heart was enlarged with marked coronary artery atherosclerotic narrowing’ and ‘myocardium showed extensive multifocal areas of fibrosis with remote ischaemic injury.’

So divers please get yourself checked out for cardio fitness, we were quite shocked to find out how significant the degradation actually was in someone seemingly so fit!

This morning at 9am my brother Ross and I went round the rocks to the spot and toasted Bruce with a dram of his favourite Lagavulin 16yo Single Malt.

May he rest in peace...

975B4EE5-1F41-4C80-848D-F0EADE86B5F8.jpeg
 

Back
Top Bottom