Every South African beach town has the same quiet building near the slipway. Inside is a rescue boat, polished and fuelled, and a duty roster of accountants, teachers, fishermen and students who will drop everything when a pager goes off at 2am. The National Sea Rescue Institute has been crewed by volunteers since 1967, born from a fishing tragedy off Stilbaai, and it has been pulling strangers out of the sea ever since.
You have probably seen their work without knowing it. The pink rescue buoys stationed on beaches around the country are NSRI, and they have already been used to save swimmers a rescue boat would have reached too late. The stays below, spread along the whole coastline, direct a share of every booking to the crews.
