HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOSSEL BAY!

Happy birthday, MOSSEL BAY!

Station 15 (Mossel Bay) celebrates its 50th anniversary on 1 May 2021. This milestone is being commemorated with an exciting, emotional and personally charged collection of stories about the station’s history, crew and supportive community. By Wendy Maritz

MOSSEL BAY HAS A rich story to tell. The history of the settlement as we know it today dates back to the 15th century when the trailblazing Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias landed at these shores. Although others are said to have sailed along this coastline even earlier, Dias was the first European seafarer that rounded the southern tip of Africa and is credited with opening up the sea passage that would link Europe to the East, making possible the bountiful trade that has lasted ever since. Then, as now, the waters off Southern Africa have thwarted and challenged mariners of all kinds. In fact, Dias himself might not have landed at Mossel Bay if it weren’t for the heavy offshore winds, so typical in this region, that made him overshoot Cape Point and the southern-most tip of the continent completely.

This stretch of ocean is notoriously turbulent and dangerous, largely due to the convergence of cold and warm water currents around Cape Agulhas (‘agulhas’ is the Portuguese word for ‘needles’, a reference to the sharp rock formations that line the coast there). Dias achieved what few explorers in his time were able to: navigate the force of two currents that had wrecked the hopes of his seafaring rivals (and often their vessels as well).

In the early days, Mossel Bay, initially known as St Blaize, was used as a stopover for bartering fresh produce and water with the resident communities, dropping off mail (the milkwood believed to be the original Post Office Tree remains preserved and is located at the Bartolomeu Dias Museum Complex), as well as the occasional – and unfortunate – ill sailor or two.

The station building was newly painted shortly before Rescue 15 arrived in December 2012.

Mossel Bay crew visit PetroSA for a full-day firefighting course.

PRESERVING THE PAST

When it comes to history, those who tell the stories are as important as the ones who document them. Contemporary author Sue Monk Kidd said: ‘Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.’ It’s a rather lyrical way to describe the importance of recounting events: for the one telling the story, for those listening and for future generations.

It was with this in mind that Station 15 station commander André Fraser began ruminating on the idea of preserving the history of the station, told within the wider context of the establishment of Mossel Bay as a town and the NSRI as the first (then inshore) rescue organisation in South Africa. He realised that decades of amazing rescues and stories would go untold if the crew or community members who experienced them were no longer with us. The wealth of those experiences would be lost to future generations. The only way to preserve the heritage of the rescue base and, indeed, its influence on the community – and vice versa – would be to write about it, capturing it in book form. This was around 2010.

THE MAKING OF A BOOK

A few years later, in 2014, André met Dr Jopie Coetzee, a mine engineer, who joined Station 15. It was during his interview that André discovered Jopie was an avid writer. ‘I told him about my idea to write a book about the station’s history,’ André says. Unfortunately, Jopie only stayed in Mossel Bay for three months before being offered a position at a university. Two years later, André was on holiday in Storms River when one of his deputies called him to deliver a ‘strange message’. It was from Jopie: ‘So, how far is your book?’

Learning the ‘ropes’ with the Air Force Oryx crew before having to use them in hoists.

André was keen to pick up where they had left off, and as soon as he returned home, he called Jopie. ‘I told him, “It’s with great shame that I have to admit it has got no further than when we last spoke,”’ André recalls.

But the conversation provided the momentum needed to kick-start the project. Jopie was in the process of forming a writers’ guild in Mossel Bay and the two men ‘tossed around a few ideas to get the process going’. The first step, naturally, would be to find writers. Two local writers, Erna Maritz and Luzette Jacobs, and a third living in Wilderness, Anneldi Morkel, were approached to join the project on a pro bono basis. They all agreed without hesitation. The editorial team also included Glenda Maritz and Keith Carey from the station and, of course, André and Jopie. The idea was to research, write and publish the book in time for the 50th anniversary of the station at Mossel Bay.

André is very quick to add that the entire station became involved with the project.

Playing ‘musical life-jackets’ – last man with a lifejacket wins!

The ‘huddle’ formation.

Volunteers were invited to contribute accounts of rescues and milestones, as well as memories and photographs. ‘Our station community and the community of Mossel Bay all had a part to play. So much of this book is a reflection of emotional stuff – emotional in that readers will feel the camaraderie, the buy-in, the help, the good faith in people; they’ll know how Sea Rescue assisted the community and how the community has assisted Sea Rescue. It portrays all the good in people.’

The idea of family springs to mind, and this family goes far beyond the base building’s walls.

Crew ready to serve guests at a centenary fundraiser commemorating the Titanic’s fatal voyage.

ABOUT MOSSEL BAY 1971-2021 GOLDEN JUBILEE

The reader is invited to experience, from a front-row seat, 50 years of miraculous rescues out at sea, personal stories and anecdotes, and other milestones involving boathouse builds and the growth of the station’s assets. This book allows insight into what happens behind the scenes during a rescue, how crew members try to process what may be tragic outcomes – and it is all spoken from the heart and in volunteers’ own words.

‘Members of the community really rallied around the development of the book – with funding, research material, sharing of memories and volunteering professional and creative services,’ notes station commander André Fraser. ‘Mossel Bay 1971-2021 Golden Jubilee is dedicated to the highly trained volunteers who defy the ocean and manage the station with passion and commitment.’

All proceeds from the book’s sales will go towards the station’s new offshore rescue craft (ORC). To find out more and preorder your copy, please contact the publisher at robin@printmatters.co.za