LIFE's full of strange stories, especially out at sea.
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Take some of the yarns associated with Long Island (Broughton Island), hugging the coast about 16 kilometres north-east of Port Stephens.
Recently, before rain and winter cold descended, Weekender took one of the last seasonal tourist trips out to the legendary island to see what had changed in the 20 years since last visited.
Now part of the Myall Lakes National Park, the once remote Broughton has a long and fascinating history considering it's only 2.5 kilometres long from Providence Point to Pinkatop Head.
Since the dark days of World War II, when Newcastle and Sydney were shelled by the enemy, and RAAF Catalina aircraft from Rathmines searched the nearby ocean for Japanese submarines, I've always suspected military authorities might have placed an Aussie coast watcher (with a radio) out there as part of an early warning system.
There's no proof of this, of course, but it seems logical. After all, there were serious fears in the early 1940s of Japanese troops invading Port Stephens and moving swiftly down the peninsula to seize Newcastle and, at one stroke, throttling its defence industries, including BHP Steelworks, ship repair facilities and Williamtown RAAF base.
Maybe that was why US General MacArthur suddenly stationed 20,000 marines in the port for training purposes.
Or was it just a co-incidence?
If that seems odd, here's an equally unlikely modern tale - today probably now largely forgotten - involving Broughton Island. And it occurred in March 2004.
That's when a navy diving team was called in to detonate a live World War II mine washed up on a reef in scenic Coal Shaft Bay on the island's western side.
The navy clearance diving team identified the round, barnacle-encrusted object as a 550 pound British Mark 17 floating bomb.
The buoyant mine had live detonators, but, when it was opened, the explosives inside were salt damaged.
It had somehow escaped detection drifting along Queensland and NSW coasts for 62 years until wedged in a reef.
It was believed to be missing from Cairns in 1942. It's not known how long the WWII mine, discovered only by chance, had been at the island.
Nelson Bay water police evacuated about 15 people from the island briefly when the bomb was detonated.
Equally odd is a tale of old maps copied by French cartographers purportedly from a lost, original 16th century Portuguese chart. It showed a mysterious southern land mass called Java La Grande (eastern Australia) on which Broughton Island might be identified as Baye Perdu (God-forsaken Bay). Explorer Captain James Cook in his ship, Endeavour, also passed by in May 1770, so maybe he knew of the same map.
More than likely, however, is that the map, if genuine, shows Fraser Island instead.
Speaking of strange things, wildlife abounds in the waters around distant Broughton Island. One tour operator to the island, for example, tells of once spotting a huge pod of Pacific common dolphins about 20 kilometres out at sea while ferrying a boat along the coast.
"The sea was boiling, all the way to the horizon it seemed, as if there were 1000 dolphins out there all together," the surprised skipper said.
Of course, one of the most main attractions at Broughton itself is scuba diving. One of the most popular destinations is Looking Glass Isle, almost at the entrance to Esmeralda Cove.
Here, a 40 metre crack in the sheer granite walls provides a magical experience for divers, like swimming in a giant aquarium, as sunlight plays overhead.
Descending in single file among schools of curious fish with colourful sponges on canyon walls, divers can often experience several fearsome looking, but now endangered, grey nurse sharks, gliding overhead.
A 40 metre crack in the sheer granite walls provides a magical experience for divers, like swimming in a giant aquarium.
Although local Worimi Aborigines once fished these waters, Broughton Island is named after a European, Captain William Broughton, who charted the island in 1795 in his vessel Providence, which is also the name now for the island's northern beach.
Broughton also had sought shelter in Port Stephens itself where to his amazement he found four white men, former convicts, living with the Worimi after escaping from Parramatta.
Today's Broughton Island is a mecca for day trippers and happily, remains largely unchanged, including placid, giant stingrays patrolling Esmeralda Cove looking for food scraps in the shallows.
The windswept island is still cratered with bird burrows, but is no longer treeless as stunted specimens now fight to survive inland.
No one is allowed to live permanently on the island, but overnight camping is permitted. Seven privately-owned huts remain under licence to provide assistance in emergencies, such as yachts in distress during storms.
In 1984, authorities recommended all huts be removed and be replaced by a basic emergency shelter.
The tiny community fought back, and after a 10-year battle, the huts remained, but under licence.
The 114-hectare nature reserve of Broughton Island was also officially declared rabbit-free in November 2009 after more than 1000 rabbits were eradicated after being there more than a century.
Weirdly, the rabbits had actually been introduced in 1906 in a failed experiment to destroy them throughout NSW.
About 5000 rats (possibly brought there on floating debris in the 1955 Hunter flood) were also wiped out to restore seabird habitat.
Broughton is now also home to a significant population of the threatened green and golden bell frog.
Broughton is full of such interesting stories over time, from giant, lurking sharks, to small-scale rutile mining there in 1956, failed plans for a tourist resort and a small airfield to an alleged Soviet spymaster, Australia's real-life Scarlet Pimpernel, living there during the Cold War.
Many of these unknown tales were preserved thankfully by Port historian John 'Stinker' Clarke in his marvellous 2009 book, Broughton Islanders.
One of Clarke's stranger Broughton tales involves one of its last true characters, the island's unofficial 'mayor', hermit Harry Larcombe (1920-1990).
Regular island visitors used to give Larcombe gifts. One time it was decided to present him with a big, juicy rump steak on the barbecue as a break from his usual fish diet.
Clarke said there was only one problem, Larcombe was toothless, so couldn't chew anything tougher than boiled vegetables.
One of his fishermen mates had the solution and on his next visit he came up to Harry's hut with a bag containing 60 sets of false teeth. Someone knew someone who worked in the city morgue and brought along a collection their previous owners had no further use of.
Harry Larcombe enthusiastically tried about 40 sets for size. None fitted, but then one pair fitted perfectly.
Anxious to sterilise his new dentures, Harry quickly boiled some water in a saucepan and dropped his new teeth in.
Minutes later to his absolute horror, he put the dentures on the table, only to see every tooth fall out of its pink plastic gums.
Ah, well. Back to the mush, Clarke wrote.
