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DISASTER STRIKES!On September 10th 2002, 'The Jolly Robino' cargo ship leaves Durban harbour with two containers of ICEMANN® ice coolers on board along with the rest of its cargo. The order is destined for Ethiopia but two days later disaster strikes and the ship runs into trouble off the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast at St. Lucia. While being buffeted by strong winds and huge waves, a fire breaks out on board and soon the distressed vessel begins to sink. Skilled divers and salvage operators were able to contain most of the damage but we were resigned to the fact that our ICEMANN® coolers had either gone up in flames or sunk to the bottom of the sea. We hastily despatched another two containers to the client and put the experience down to bad luck. THE SURVIVORS – PART 1Amazingly enough, some of the consignment of ICEMANN® coolers survived the blazing fires and rough seas. Six weeks later, we received several phone calls notifying us that some of our cooler boxes had washed ashore on the beach at Cape St. Francis – nearly 1,500 kilometres further south from the site of the disaster! Delighted that some of the ICEMANN® coolers had survived and lived to cool another day, we instructed the lucky finders to keep the ice boxes for themselves as most were still in near perfect condition. And that we thought was the end of this incredible story – but what we didn't know is that for one hardy ICEMANN® cooler, the journey had only just begun! THE SURVIVOR – PART 2The lone ICEMANN® cooler continued its journey southward drifting along the powerful Agulhas Current. It rounded the bottom of Africa and continued southwards towards the icy waters of the Antarctic. There it hit the Western Australia current and continued its amazing journey north east surviving treacherous seas and bitter conditions. Remarkably, this lone ICEMANN® cooler travelled almost 18,000 kilometres before finally washing up on a remote beach at Red Rocks Point on the western coast of Australia. A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FROM AFAR!On December 1st, 2003 – an incredible 14 months later – an Australian fisherman by the name of John Iwankiw was driving his 4x4 along a remote beach when he came across the red ICEMANN® cooler. The ice box had lost its lid but otherwise was in perfect condition. Noticing an asset tag on the box, John contacted the Resource Marketing head office in South Africa to report his find and enquired about the possibility of ordering a replacement lid for his miraculous new cooler box. Amazed at the astonishing durability of our product, we were more than happy |