If you’ve been in distress in the waters around Pender Harbour anytime in the past 20 years, Dennis Cotter may have been among those who came to your rescue.
Rain pounded down in Irvines Landing on Sept. 13, as the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue (RCM SAR) Station 61 member received an award recognizing his 20 years of service.
Many in the organization have been members for five or six years, but 20 is “an amazing achievement,” said RCM SAR Station 61 leader Simon Hayter, as members gathered to celebrate Cotter. (Cotter’s actual RCM SAR anniversary was during the pandemic, so the ceremony was delayed.)
“I remember when I was a new crew, not that long ago, and Dennis was one of the senior guys that I looked up to,” said Hayter. “From then until now, he's [been] just a great guy to work with on the boat. He's a voice of calmness and experience. And one of those people that you know you can look to just get the job done.”
The time away from families is significant – in training and in calls – said Hayter. “It’s an amazing commitment to be able to maintain that many years doing this kind of volunteer work and maintaining that level of operation,” said Hayter. “So this is a thank you and a recognition.”
By sea and by air
By the time Cotter took to the water with RCM SAR in 2003, he had already spent decades in the air. He had been a bush pilot, including in the Arctic above Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories, and flew locally for some time.
Fifty-odd years ago, Cotter was flying in Sechelt when he and his wife, newly married, made the move to Earls Cove, to the country’s first salmon farming licence. And they stayed in the area. Their two sons grew up going to Madeira Park Elementary School and then Pender Harbour Secondary School.
Around the early 1980s, Cotter flew for the Beachcombers TV series and for the one-season Ritter’s Cove (1980) filmed in Egmont (the German-Canadian co-production featured seaplanes where the Beachcombers had boats). “The plot was crappy but the scenery was fantastic!” (And that was the extent of his career as a fictional cocaine pilot.)
But, Cotter said, he’s also always been on the water, always had a boat. When he joined RCM SAR in 2003, “I just followed along with my desire to be out on the water,” he said.
“And then I was learning things that, I thought I should have known, but I didn't know,” he chuckles. “The rules and regulations and that.”
Over the decades of incidents the one that stands out in Cotter’s mind was about six years ago. The wind was blowing about 50 knots, when they got the call someone had tipped over in a kayak just off Lang Bay.
“So we got out there and all of a sudden we see all these little packages…plastic packages, all floating around in the bay there,” he said. “I think we kind of assumed that somebody was on delivery, and the thing tipped over.
“They got pulled up with a helicopter and we got to pick up all of the debris,” he remembers with a head shake.
It’s gotten tougher being on call and getting calls any hour of the day, but before joining Station 61, Cotter was in the fire department “so I kind of knew the routine,” he said.
“We’re really just trying to help people and it’s usually rewarding.”
Just the other night Station 61 was called out to help someone who woke to realise they were sliding off their anchorage. “We got there and got them hooked up and put them onto a dock and they were happy.”
“That kind of thing is rewarding,” he said. “But we haven’t had any life threatening-type of situations that I can really recall.
But there’s still an adrenaline rush every time, “because you don’t know what you’re going to find.”
At 78, Cotter said his age is catching up with him, but he reckons he may have another three to five years left with the organization. “I guess the time will come when you know, you know that it's time.”
“Working with a whole bunch of different people over the years been a real pleasure,” Cotter told his gathered colleagues. “And now we're getting more younger people and I think the better to see that happen.”
Asked later how he felt about the award, “It’s nice to be known or recognized,” Cotter said, laughing, “I don't feel like a hero or anything.”
