8 minute read
Continuing the family tradition
Cottage Point volunteer has salt water in her blood
As a schoolgirl, Bronte Wilkinson loved volunteering, from completing the community service award where she worked with the National Parks and Wildlife Service to assisting with the National Swimming Championships for people with Down Syndrome; she just wanted to help.
“I also hiked the Kokoda Trail with school and my Dad back in 2014.
“I probably should have been studying, but it was an incredible experience.
“I helped teach the children in a remote village while my father built them a netball ring.
Fast forward a decade with the HSC well behind her, multiple university degrees to her credit and a blossoming career in marketing and communications, Bronte is now continuing the family tradition of volunteering on the water.
Her Pop, Idris Samuel, became involved with the Australian Coast Guard Auxiliary after purchasing a small half-cabin boat in the mid-1970s.
“A business associate approached me and invited me to join after explaining what they did for the boating fraternity.
“I arranged to join where he was at the Cottage Point Flotilla (NF2 NSW & National Flotilla2).
“It is a move I will never regret,” he said.
Idris was later invited to become the NSW Squadron’s Stores Officer and given the rank of Vice Captain.
It’s not just Pop who volunteered on the water. Bronte’s mother Dianne and Uncle Craig also spent a decade volunteering with the Coast Guard.
“All three drove Coast Guard 18,” Bronte said proudly.
“They used their own family boat as well, patrolling around Cottage Point, Broken Bay and conducting offshore assists,” she said.
Bronte joined Marine Rescue Cottage Point in June 2020 just as the pandemic was starting to change life as we knew it.
“I’ve always enjoyed volunteering, I find it fun,” she said.
Bronte chuckles at the suggestion that volunteering on the water is in her blood.
“They’re (Pop, Mum and Uncle Craig) much better at it than me.
It was their connection with Cottage Point that attracted her to the unit.
“During COVID I needed some change in my life and thought it was the perfect time to get involved.
“Time has flown by so quickly,” she said.
Bronte recently celebrated her 27th birthday and has made the most of her time as a member, completing her crew, senior crew and RWC operator ratings and recently passed her operational assessment for leading crew.
She also played a role in recruiting her father to Marine Rescue Cottage Point.
“A few months after I started, Tony Gordon who was the Unit Commander at the time said he was happy for me to bring Pop down to the base to have a look at the rescue boats.
“Mum and Dad came to help, and Dad saw how amazing Tony was with Pop and the unit and he knew how much I was enjoying it, so he was like I’ll join as well,” she said.
Bronte and her father Peter enjoy a close bond and spend many Sundays together as part of Cottage Point’s C2 crew.
“I keep trying to have one more stripe than he does,” Bronte said.
The day her Pop visited the unit is one Bronte recalls fondly.
“He loved the tour.
“Tony took him through CP 31 and CP 30, the vessel upgrades, systems and Tony was also keen to hear about the history of the boats that Pop used to drive with the Coast Guard.
“We were out on the water giving Pop a capability demonstration and a tinny flagged us down for an assist because they had engine trouble.
“Pop was impressed by the way the crew operated and the professionalism of Marine Rescue NSW,” Bronte said.
Idris told Soundings that he was envious of the Cottage Point vessels and admitted he wished they were around in the 1980s and 1990s.
“The boats had a large enough interior to give shelter from both weather and sea spray for crew and anyone that needed to be taken on board with the stern-well big enough to accommodate a stretcher and the necessary attending personnel.
“Their powerful motors would enable them to attain any high
“They appeared to be able to negotiate shallower waters to those we could in normal V-shaped hulled timber and fiberglass vessels,” Idris said.
“It would have also been great to have had jet skis around in my day.
“Some of the vessels used by the Coast Guard were of similar size and power, constructed from timber or fiberglass and we had to depend on donations without Government assistance.
“We had enough trouble raising funds for the upkeep and running costs for the small vessel we had,” he said.
Idris recalled a rescue mission from his time with the Coast Guard when he could have done with a modern-day Marine Rescue NSW vessel at his disposal.
“We were hauled out one weekend starting on the Friday night to search for two yachtsmen who were lost from a race from near Botany Bay to the islands off Wollongong and return.
“Because of the wind and current, it was thought they would drift north thus our area was from Long Reef to Norah Head and 15 miles to sea.
“Bronte’s mother, Dianne, was in the radio room, Craig was with Vice Commodore Hans Pet on Jaqueline 3, and I was with the National Radio Captain Gordon Clark on CG 18.
“The sea was such that Police launch Delaine, who was next to us on the search line, would disappear behind the swell and it was so great that we would not be able to see the top of her radio mast,” he said.
Idris then revealed that he cannot swim.
“When I finally got home my wife asked about the search and when I said we were about 10 miles out she asked what would have I done if CG 18 sank? All I could respond with was in those seas there is not much hope,” he said.
Idris said he is proud of Bronte’s commitment to Marine Rescue NSW and that she is maintaining the family’s seagoing tradition along with her brother who is in the Navy.
“She is able to trace her heritage back to the start of records in the Shetland Islands where they are all of pure Viking origin.
“Her great-great-great grandfather was a sea captain that came from there when he was nearly 30-years-old.
“After settling in Sydney he obtained employment with the Government Harbour Master/Lighthouse Keeper of Wollongong from 1879 and also oversaw Port Kembla.
“Bronte’s great-great grandfather was born and grew up in Wollongong, living in the Harbourmaster’s home which was situated where the present lighthouse is at Flagstaff Hill.
“Her great grandfather was for the last 29-and-a-half years with the Maritime Services Board at Port Kembla,” he shared.
Bronte’s Marine Rescue experience hasn’t only been in waters around Cottage Point.
In late 2022, she assisted with the NSW flood emergency response spending a week in Burke on an NSW SES boat before returning home to Turramurra for a short time and then being deployed to the Parkes base camp where she assisted in Condobolin on a Marine Rescue NSW vessel.
“It was such a unique experience, it was so different to my day job where I do marketing and communications.
“My employer has the Emergency Services Leave entitlement so I was able to assist with the flood emergency.
“To be so remote and involved in such an important operation helping people was a rewarding experience.
Bronte is a skilled Rescue Water Craft (RWC) operator and has nothing but praise for the Greater Sydney pilot program where Marine Rescue Central Coast shared its RWCs with a group of units.
“I also had the privilege to take part in the Hunter/Central Coast SAREX at Lake Macquarie in July last year and operated one of the Central Coast RWCs.
Idris told Soundings that Bronte and her father couldn’t have chosen a better activity to volunteer for.
“Besides being able to help their fellow man, they will learn a lot,” he said.
As for Bronte, she’s enjoying her volunteering journey with Marine Rescue Cottage Point.
“I’d like to get more involved in leadership, I’m really interested in the State Operations Group.
“Marine Rescue is definitely a priority for me, I love being on the water and helping people,” she said.
