It might be 20 years ago but Club Scotts greenkeeper Gary Witte remembers it like yesterday ... the 38 metre boat, the Zhu Gan Tou, stranded on Scotts Head Beach that brought 61 Chinese to our shores.
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"It was a wet rainy Saturday morning, I was driving to work and it was still pretty dark and I passed a group of well-dressed Asians walking towards the highway," Gary said.
"I thought there must be a tourist bus broken down ... I passed a couple more groups and then I saw someone being assisted and I thought perhaps there had been an accident.
"Or maybe even a boat washed up on the beach."
When he got to work there were two other blokes there and after a bit of joking around, they went over to the beach to have a look.
"I'll never forget it - there was this huge boat a couple of hundred metres away! I rang the police and told them there were about 50 people from a boat making their way to the highway - they jumped to it immediately."
Word spread, including to Gary's mate at Radio 2MC, who shared the scoop with Radio 2UE in Sydney - by 7am it was on the national news and by 9am the tiny seaside town was chock-a-block with cars and people coming to have a look.
We made the news around the world!
- Heather Vollmer, Scotts Head resident
Club Scotts director Vic Mankin ran a Bed 'n Breakfast in town at the time and clearly remembers getting a call from family in Sydney early in the morning.
"We thought it was a joke - but when we had a look out the window, there it was, this huge boat! And then it was on - there were police, helicopters, media, immigration - everyone was descending on Scotts, the place went crazy.
"The BBC rang from London and we had Immigration officials staying for a couple of days."
It didn't take too long for the 'visitors' to be found and taken away by police (and later deported) ... although rumour has it there were a couple that got away.
In honour of the 20th anniversary, Vic has organised a small exhibition of memorabilia down at Club Scotts, complete with hand-written stories by residents about their memories of the day.
Also on display is story of the prank replica that Scotts Head Public School students created for a recycling competition - including photos of them taking it to the beach and calling the media.
It was of course a joke, but there was no doubting its success - both as a profile-raiser for cardboard recycling, and that it won first prize in the competition.
The exhibition will be in place throughout April at the club.
Also making the news:
Ute Schulenberg
Journalism was always my plan but plans being what they are, I did not get to realise it until my early 40s ... and have loved every minute since. For me community journalism is the most intimate and honest place to be in this field - telling the stories of people I live with, side-by-side, every day. It is an honour.
Journalism was always my plan but plans being what they are, I did not get to realise it until my early 40s ... and have loved every minute since. For me community journalism is the most intimate and honest place to be in this field - telling the stories of people I live with, side-by-side, every day. It is an honour.
