'DREAMS COME TRUE'

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 288, 5 December 1932, Page 9

'DREAMS COME TRUE'

ZANE GREY ARRIVES.

OFF TO MERCURY BAY.

WILL FILM THE MAKO SHARK Looking over the rail of the Monterey this morning at his new fishing launch, Frangipani, which was cruising round the big liner when she was anchored in the stream, Mr. Zane Grey said: "I think she is the prettiest thing I have ever seen in the water. You fellowe in New Zealand sure can build boats."

Speaking of what he termed, "the fishing adventure ' I have just embarked upon," Mr. Grey said that although fishing was a passion with him he still managed to write as much as he fished. "This ia my fourth trip to New Zealand, the land of the long bright afternoon, as the Maoris call it," he said. "There ought to be no other reason than that for visiting the Dominion, but a*s a matter of fact I am after a couple of giant swordfish that got away from me in 1929."

Mr. Grey said that on this trip his companion fisherman, Dr. Wiborn, was the famous "lone angler" of the Tuna Club of Avalon, who wae the founder of the Tyee Club of British Columbia. "It will be fun," he continued, "same as in the ease of my brother R. C, to hook him on to some whales and see him get his tackle smashed." Autocrat Of Sharks.

"We expect to spend three months in the North Island camping on one of the beautiful points of the wild coast of Mercury Bay, where we will endeavour to put the spectacular antics of the great leaping mako shark on our motionpicture film," he continued. "This aristocrat of sharks, and the most magnificent of all leaping fish, has not yet been adequately photographed even in still pictures, let alone the fascinating and scientific movie. Of course, we will not turn our backs on some big black marlin if they happen to come along.

"From Mercury Bay wo will go to the Tongariro, that wonderful green-white rushing river so like the Athabasca, river of the Arctic, and then to the South Island, where we will fish and photograph for a month.

Long Cruise In The Pacific. "In April we will leave Wellington for Tahiti, where we will be met by the rest of my party in my yacht, the Fisherman 11. This will be a second beginning of the great cruise I planned years ago and had to abandon in 1930. My brother R. C, and my boys Laren and Romer, and my daughter Betty will be aboard the yacht. We will visit the Paumotos first, and take our time. It will to no small task to mako a greater picture than my 'South Sea Adventure,' recently released in the United States, but that is what I propose to do. I intend this time to film the mako.

"From Tahiti we will sail next, touching at the Tongas, the.Fijis and the Coral Reefs, having as our main objective the virgin waters of North Australia. At Thursday Island we will be joined by Mr. Ernest Pollack, an Australian scientist, of Sydney, who has been largely responsible for my ambition to fish the Great Barrier Reef, the Torres Straits and the Gulf of Carpentaria. We expect to see ■ .any strange monsters of_ the deep, many of them unknown to science. And I have no doubt that Australian i watere will trail those of New Zealand, if not actually surmount them, as the moet wonderful of the Western Pacific.

To Fish In Indian Ocean. "From Australia we will sail on to Komodo, Bali, Java and Ceylon, where ■my main objective will be the unfished Indian Ocean. When I have fished, there, if my party have not gone native, or refused to leave the lost paradise, Bali, and if they are still well and strong, we will go home by way of the Suez Canal to *he Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and through the Panama Canal to the Pacific. Of course, only a fisherman's dreams! But mine all come true. Even if they didn't it would ibe fun to have these dreams. Every fisherman in the world, shares them."

In addition to Dr. Wiborn and his wife Mr. Grey's party includes his secretary, Miss Wanda Williams, and two cameramen, Messrs. Harry C. Anderson and Mr. Jos. E. Morhardt, jun. Mr. Grey leaves for Mercury Bay to-morrow by motor car. "The 'boys will go down by the launch with the luggage," he said.

Tourist Traffic. Mr. Grey said he had a lot of new gear, but he would use different tackle at Tahiti. He had new rods and reels. The rods were of special design, and made of hickory. "The finer the tackle the better the results," he said. He expressed the view that as soon ae America got over the depression there would be a big stream of tourists to New Zealand on account of the quicker ocean transit.

"I have been Mr. Grey's trail partner since our college days," said Dr. Wiborn, who is making his first visit to New Zealand. He said he was the "lone angler referred to ri Mr. Grey's books.