Orion’s Expedition Team Member Mark Christensen and Donny Woolagoodja from Wandjina Tours
WILDABOUT By Stephen Scourfield This story originally published in The Weekend West, 12 November 2011
H
HARRY
arry crouches slightly and holds up his hands, fingers spread, like a criminal caught in a police spotlight. He looks up, his face framed by a dinner-plate beard, and flicks his open-wide eyes from side to side.
“I’m a goby girl, in a goby world …” he sings, acting startled, acting up. Harry loves just about everything in the water, but he really loves gobies. “These are great little fish, ” he enthuses. And I mean enthuses. “They can change sex multiple times … They can use their pectoral fins like feet
and walk along … They can adhere to pieces of coral … They have an incredible amount of flexibility …” Harry’s brilliant. He has a genuine enthusiasm and the ability to communicate that thrill. He conjures up the image of both a bug-eyed, cross-dressing fish and a super-specialist creature, all with a bit of theatre and few pearls of wisdom thrown in. Harry’s real name is Mark Christensen, but one simply can’t imagine anyone knowing or caring about that. To all and sundry, he’s Harry — scraggy-bearded, unmade-bed-looking, croc-footed, lovable, inspiring Harry. He is a marine biologist and for 14 years worked in the tourism industry, drawing up educational programs for the Kimberley, Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait. There, he helped set up Poruma Island Resort on Coconut Island. Establishing
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Journeys FEBRUARY 2013