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I was at the Scarborough boat ramp (next to Coastguard) about 3pm Saturday (31 May) and water police (in a car) were really giving a cruise craft on its trailer a real going over, they were spearo's coming back from Moreton Island - anyone know why they were so severe on these guys?
The crew went missing for a long period of time and separated but found safely, it was action stations on channel 21 when it all went down which is why the police are investigating there procedures..
Any scuba tanks on board the boat?
No tanks on board !
I was in the first boat (Tripple A) that was in the search. I'm so glad to hear the police were all over them. There were two divers in the water for 1.5 hours before someone in the boat asked on channel 21 how to contact the coastguard. I think the guy left in charge on the boat couldn't have been the captain as he didn't have much of an idea what was going on. I honestly expected to find a corpse floating in the water as the conditions were shit. They eventually found the two divers on the beach at Moreton about 2 or more kms from where the went missing, alive. Someone on the beach in a 4x4 had one of them and was flashing his lights out to sea. The poor buggers had been separated whilst in the water. Scary situation for all involved.
Definitely got the adrenaline going looking for those divers that's for sure. Really glad they were found though. Good work to all involved in the search and it's great to see everyone bands together to help in a bad situation out on the water.
No doubt a pretty scary situation for all involved. Glad they were found and ok. Were they along the northern end of the island?
Cuzza
Cuzza, the vessel sending the distress call about the missing divers gave us the mark he dropped them off it. It was deadset in the middle of nowhere about a 2 miles off the beach just west of the Nth Moreton Artificials in about 8m of water. There was a fairly strong current towards the SW so we headed towards Comby point and searched the area just North of it. Turned out after they had been separated they both ended up just heading for the beach anyways and they landed about 2km away from each other. The American on the radio kept giving us unreliable information and couldn't give us a very good description of either of them so it became quite frustrating. THEN, whilst we all were still frantically searching the water, old mate had found them on the beach but didn't bother letting us know until 10 minutes after he'd found them. But all said and done, it was good they weren't on the evening news for all the wrong reasons and everyone returned safely to shore. I guess we can all take a positive out of that.
I remember something similar happening in 2001 when I was with VMR Sandgate, 2 lost divers near Combie Point, as soon as the boat came on the radio about the lost divers the police boat "Olive" also came on the air, wanted the skippers mobile phone number and INSISTED to cease ALL radio communication and all information now by mobile phone through the police boat "Olive" ( he didn't want the Channel 10 helicopter videoing bodies being dragged from the water). Immediately coastguard Raby Bay sent a boat up the eastern side of Moreton Island, coast guard Redcliffe and VMR Sandgate sent boats up the western side of Moreton Is and VMR Bribie Is sent a boat across to help the "Olive" in a search.
Bottom line, both divers washed up onto Moreton Is and were safe.