NSRI Station Commandant Mike Landry, a native South African living off the grid close to Port Elizabeth in a mud and thatched roof bi-roundel served by a large elevated drum of water periodically delivered which provided all of the water the nuclear family required. Before they became popular in American suburbia a fire pit in the center of one roundel sent the smoke up and thru the thatched roof even in the rather rare rainstorm. A contented way of life.

The volunteers of the National Sea Rescue Institute maintained a double hulled rescue boat in Port Elizabeth and went to aid ships in distress where the cool South Atlantic and the warm Southwestern Indian oceans roiled together and split some of the poorly designed ocean freighters. It had two hulls with “air cells” that looked like ping-pong balls which guaranteed the hull would stay afloat after being seriously damaged. I still have the NSRI regimental tie.

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