On December 23, 1938, Hendrik Goosen, the captain of the trawler "Nerine", returned to the harbour at East London, South Africa, after a trawl between the Chalumna and Ncera Rivers. The "Latimeria chalumnae" was inhabiting the slopes of Grande Comore and Anjouan islands at depths between . As he frequently did, he telephoned his friend, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator at East London Museum, to see if she wanted to look over the contents of the catch for anything interesting, and told her of the strange fish he had set aside for her. Correspondence in the archives of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB, formerly the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology) show that Goosen went to great lengths to avoid any damage to this fish and ordered his crew to set it aside for the East London Museum. Goosen later told how the fish was steely blue when first seen but by the time the "Nerine" entered East London harbour many hours later the fish had become dark grey.