Drowned in South Africa

Monday 29th January 2007, 12:00AM GMT.

A FORMER Islander described as ‘one of the nicest people anyone could meet’ drowned when a commercial fishing boat sank off the coast of South Africa.

James van der Niet had just achieved his dream of owning a charter fishing boat when the disaster happened in the early hours of 17 January. He had told friends that he had ‘done it at last’ and planned to start taking customers out fishing later this year. On the night he died, however, he was one of five crew on a commercial vessel fishing for tuna around 20 miles south of Cape Point, Cape Town. James, whose parents, Edward and Wendy, emigrated to South Africa from Jersey in 1971, worked in Jersey off and on between 1999 and last year. He had several jobs during those years, and was employed as a fishmonger by Fin & Feather in the market and also as a security guard at the waterfront.

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