WA man rescued from remote Pilbara island after snorkelling trip goes awry
Details of the dramatic rescue incident of a 28-year-old man in Pilbara, Western Australia, who found himself stranded on a small island after breaking the anchor of his boat while snorkeling have emerged.
WA Police released details of the rescue on Friday (April 17), which began when worried family members who had not heard from the man were alerted as he was returning from a solo boating and camping trip to Picard Island in a 3.3m inflatable boat.
Picard Island is off the coast of Point Samson, east of Karratha, and the historic ghost town of Cossack.
The area is popular with fishermen, but the tides are quite large, often swinging from lows of 1 meter to highs of over 5 meters in five or six hours.
Police were joined by Volunteer Sea Rescue units and private vessels as they combed the shore to find the man, before the man was spotted by officers on a charter flight.
The man was knee-deep in water on a remote part of Picard Island when a commercial fishing boat picked him up and took him to the Point Samson boat ramp. Apart from severe dehydration, the man escaped unharmed.
The man was snorkeling about 3 miles from Picard Island when his boat dropped anchor, leaving him stranded in the ocean.
He attempted to swim to another nearby island and spent several hours in the water before returning to Picard Island, where he waited until help arrived.
