Neither Mick nor I had dived in the Northern Territory and were determined to put that right. On an extremely hot day, we headed south from Darwin to Litchfield National Park ready to dive Rum Jungle Lake near Batchelor.
Eleven days earlier a freshwater crocodile had bitten a swimmer at the nearby Wangi Falls. Freshwater crocodiles are not as dangerous as saltwater crocodiles but nevertheless I was feeling apprehensive. Mick sought to reassure me.
“There’s no chance of any crocs attacking us whilst we’re underwater. Probably”
Rum Jungle Lake looked green. We had been told to expect a layer of very dirty water from the surface down to a depth of 10-12 metres and that below that the water would clear up. The reality was that although visibility improved the deeper we went; the surface layer of suspended material was so that thick that it precluded any sunlight penetrating to the depths and as a result this dive was akin to a night dive.
The dive was uneventful although ascending back up into the shallows we chanced upon numerous tadpoles. But fortunately no crocodiles.