As dawn broke through the rain clouds over False Bay on Wednesday, two figures huddled on the Kalk Bay harbour wall, staring at the spot where they saw their friend fall into the sea.
Above them hovered the red and white Western Cape rescue helicopter, while two NSRI vessels ploughed back and forth through the surf, searching for a 14-year-old Lotus River boy, known only as James, who fell off the harbour wall while fishing with his friends, Moegamat-Moosa Adams, 18, and Shaandre Hendricks, 17.
There was no sign of the teenager, out at sea or along the coast. Emergency services believe he must have been swept out to sea.
James had slept over at Adams’s house on Tuesday night and had been excited to go on a pre-dawn fishing trip with his two friends.
Adams, his black hoodie pulled over his head against the cool morning air, the tips of dyed ginger curls sticking out, pointed to the cement quay in front of him: “We were standing right there, fishing. He said: ‘I can cast further than you, look, I’ll show you,’ and he went to stand right on the edge and he cast.
“But when he cast he went right in with the rod. He was still holding his rod but he was in the water. We shouted to him to swim, and he swam back into the harbour, to the tyres there on the wall, and he was holding on and said: ‘Take my rod.’ So we took his rod, but we couldn’t get to him.
“Then he said he was going to swim there, by the beach, but there was a rip that was taking him. Then he was near those rocks, on the other side. I think he was getting tired from the rip and we were swearing at him, telling him: ‘Just f****n swim, man!’
“Then we couldn’t see him, because he went further away and it was still dark, about four in the morning. We called to him and called to him, but then he didn’t answer any more. So I called my dad at home.”
His father, Riedewaan Adams, got the call from his son at 4.40am.
“I came here right away and I couldn’t see him anywhere. We didn’t know what to do. Then we saw some people in the building in the harbour and we went and said: ‘Listen here, a kid has fallen into the sea here.’
“So they walked with us, looking, and then they phoned the rescue people and they came,” Riedewaan Adams said.
Metro Emergency Services, the police, Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service, Cape Medical Response paramedics and NSRI Simon’s Town volunteers responded to the call. NSRI volunteers searched in their sea rescue craft, Spirit of Safmarine III and Eddie Beaumont II, for the boy.
The search party believe the teenager must have become exhausted, possibly succumbed to hypothermia, and was swept out to sea.
NSRI said in a statement on Wednesday: “NSRI Simon’s Town conducted an extensive sea search, Metro EMS rescue divers and police divers were deployed to scuba dive search, members of the Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service conducted extensive shore patrols during the early hours, illuminated the search area with searchlights, and at first light a Metro EMS Red Cross AMS helicopter joined in the search. No sign of the teenager was found. Police have opened an inquest docket.”
Police divers and a helicopter continued the search later in the day.
Adams said he did not know the surname of his friend James, who lived with his grandmother, as his mother was dead.
Riedewaan Adams stood on the harbour wall next to his son: “Now I’ve got to go and tell his granny. She doesn’t even know yet.”
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