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Eric Keppel Hansen (he preferred to be called Keppel) initiated the operation of a passenger boat service between Lady Musgrave Island and Bundaberg. His boat was called "Sapphire". Lady Musgrave is a coral cay and enclosed lagoon in the southern Coral Sea. Originally, Keppel was a lighthouse keeper, then he became a professional fisherman. When World War II began he attempted to enlist in the Royal Australian Navy, but was told he was too old. So instead he served in the US Army Small Ships fleet, and it was his task to deliver boats to New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, Papua and New Guinea. After the war he returned to commercial fishing. At one point, he went to Norfolk Island for Cottees Passiona, and while there he saw the possibility of commercial whaling. He began a whaling station, but after 4 years there was a fire, which burnt the station down. He returned to Bundaberg and was employed by Fairymead Mill, to service their copra plantation in Solomon Islands. So his vessel traded in cargo and recruited local labour to work on the Unilever plantation on Yandina Island, Solomon Islands. (Yandina had been a US submarine base during the war.) During this period, he heard many of the stories of the past, in relation to the Youngs of Fairymead and their unscrupulous captains and crews of labour vessels engaged in the "Kanaka trade". Keppel (1911-95) married Esme Lister (1914-1989) and they had one son, Kenneth. [LINEAGE: Ken Hansen s/o E K Hansen & Esme Lister d/o Ernest Lister s/o Caroline Stehbens d/o Detlef Staeben s/o Frantz Stebens who was born in Blücher, Mecklenburg]
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