Divers' ordeal after rope snaps

Two local divers were forced to swim a kilometre and wait to be rescued after their boat’s anchor rope snapped, leaving them stranded in an ordeal that lasted almost four hours on Monday.

The experienced divers, who wanted to be known only as Matt and Ian, had been in the water for several minutes on Herald Reef when they aborted the dive and surfaced.

“It’s funny, people talk about gut feelings and the bloke I was diving with, who’s spent probably more of his life underwater than out of it, motioned to abort dive only a few minutes in,” Matt said.

“We made a controlled ascent and when we popped up the boat was already 100m away so we knew there was no chance of getting it.”

The pair swam for 50 minutes to the northern side of Michaelmas Island where they scrambled ashore and waited almost three hours before Albany Sea Rescue Squad boats located them.

“We had a bit of a laugh about it while we were waiting — I was pretty worried about what would happen to my father-in-law’s boat,” Matt said.

Albany Sea Rescue president Jason Howard said two search boats took just over an hour to locate the men after a walker, Peter Stewart, activated the boat’s EPIRB on Ledge Beach where it washed ashore.

Mr Stewart was walking his dog on the beach and watched the vessel drift in.

“As I came back toward the corner it kept coming closer and closer to the beach and as I got closer it came into the breakers,” he said.

“I could see there was no one on board and a diving flag on the back.”

After an unsuccessful attempt to start the boat’s engine, Mr Stewart set off the EPIRB to alert authorities.

With the help of passerby Bevan Dashwood, he spent an hour trying to beach the unmanned vessel to save it from smashing up on rocks at the end of the bay.

After the ordeal the divers were taken back to the boat, which was towed offshore and driven back to Albany under its own power.

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