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MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Herman Kleynhans of Dana Bay, who had a 41-year career working at lighthouses or as a lighthouse inspector, is turning 90 today, Friday 27 January.
He was the first ever senior lighthouse inspector in South Africa.
PHOTO GALLERY: Lighthouse inspector talks about shining light
Herman still walks his dog every morning and has excellent posture, his back straight.
He tells of some horrific shipping accidents which occurred during his lighthouse career from 1952 to 1933.
In August 1972, two ships, the Oswego Guardian and the Texanita, collided 23 sea miles off Stilbaai. After the collision, one half of the Texanita exploded and then the second half exploded, there being oil on board, and 47 sailors died. Herman has a scrapbook with press clippings including ones of this disaster. One photograph in the 15 September 1972 edition of Scope magazine shows a corpse blackened by fire.
Shockwaves
He was on duty at the time and the shockwaves from the collision were so powerful that an earth tremor was experienced at Mossel Bay. This is documented in a newspaper article.
In another accident in about 1972 that he heard about, a fishing trawler lost its cabin somewhere on the Southern Cape coast. One of the crew in the sea was thrown a life jacket, but he could not put it on because he had broken his arm. Despite searches along the coast, his body was only found a month later 70 sea miles off Cape Columbine near Paternoster on the West Coast. Tests found that the broken arm bones had started knitting together, so the man must have survived for a while at sea.
On 13 June 1968, the Liberian tanker World Glory was hit by a freak wave and broke into two, 65 miles east of Durban and 25 people lost their lives.
Fish
Herman says he is so fit and healthy because he has caught and eaten much fish in his life, eaten a lot of garlic and worked hard. His wife Stella chips in: "It's the grace of God." The couple agree they have had a happy, healthy life.
Herman has never smoked and only drinks wine or a beer, but really seldom. He eats lots of fruit and salads and drinks mainly water and sometimes fruit juice. He will be celebrating his birthday with family at a hotel tomorrow, Saturday 28 January.
Every three to four years he was transferred to a different lighthouse. This was the way of life for lighthouse staff. Before his lighthouse career he had his first job, starting in 1949, as a packer at the railways in Umkomaas.
Some of the many places he was stationed include Port Shepstone and Cape St Lucia in KwaZulu-Natal, Cape Point and Green Point in the Cape, Bird Island off Port Elizabeth and Port Nolloth on the West Coast.
Horse and cart
Herman recalls how in 1953 he had to use a horse and cart or oxwagon to get across the sand to the lighthouse at Cape St Francis, near Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape. "Cars had only just come on to the market," Herman recalls. "In 1957 I got my first car and I had to wait for it."
His wife Stella says that because the family were stationed in such remote places at times, they had to make their own entertainment and play darts and other games in the evenings.
For stretches, their children had to be in boarding schools because there were no schools close to the remote lighthouses. The couple have four children, nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Herman's hobby is making pictures using cut and polished semi-precious stones. He buys a large stone and cuts it into smaller pieces using a saw made for cutting diamonds. He also polishes the stones. He glues the pieces of stone on to quartzite and the pictures last for decades.
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