Yesterday, two kayakers who ventured out to sea on a fishing excursion in Still Bay saw most of their morning go swimmingly until one kayak started to become submerged underwater.
According to Still Bay’s National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) station commander Jean du Plessis, their station was alerted to the distressed kayakers who were close to surf zones off-shore of Preekstoel in the afternoon.
The NSRI’s rescue craft Colorpress Rescue was swiftly launched to aid the rescue endeavour.
“We got visuals of the two casualty kayakers from when we were about a nautical mile away from them. They had also seen the NSRI rescue craft and they had set off a red distress handheld flare,” explained du Plessis.
Upon the team’s arrival, one of the kayaks was discovered to be semi-submerged and swallowing water as it drifted to the surf zone a nautical mile off-shore. The two had attempted to raft their kayaks together and paddle to the harbour, but an off-shore wind made it too difficult for the semi-swallowed kayak.
“We rescued the casualty kayaker and his waterlogged kayak onto our NSRI rescue craft and the second kayaker chose to paddle back to the harbour which he did without incident. The casualty kayak was drained of water and we brought the casualty kayaker and his kayak to the harbour without incident,” du Plessis recalls.
The kayak’s bung had popped out causing the influx of water and its instability.
Upon reaching the safety of the harbour, the two kayakers were good to go and were commended by the NSRI for their emergency action plan and safety gear alike.
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