A man has been rescued after being blown almost 2 nautical miles out to sea on a sea kayak.
Rieghard Janse van Rensburg, NSRI Jeffreys Bay station commander, said that at 09h27 on Wednesday 21 March, NSRI Jeffreys Bay received a call from 24/7 paramedic services reporting eye-witness accounts of a man being blown out to sea on a sea kayak off Aston Bay, Jeffreys Bay.
Eye-witnesses claimed that it was evident that the man appeared to be trying to paddle towards shore against a strong off-shore wind that had suddenly developed but his efforts appeared to be in vain as he continued to be steadily blown further out to sea.
“Our NSRI Jeffreys Bay volunteer sea rescue duty crew were activated, said Rieghard, and we managed to establish contact with the man, 40 year old Hayden Bailey, from Jeffreys Bay, after he had managed to (using his cellphone) phone our flanking sea rescue base at NSRI St Francis Bay requesting urgent assistance”.
“Our NSRI volunteer sea rescue duty crew launched our sea rescue craft Discovery Rescue Runner and on arrival on-scene sight of the man had been lost so we began a search from his last known position”, said Rieghard.
“In gusting over 25 knot winds and a heavy sea swell we continued a search pattern steadily heading further out to sea but the casualty spotted us first, on our highly visible sea rescue craft, and using his cellphone to communicate with us he guided us towards him and only once we were much closer to him did we see him and he was rescued 2 nautical miles off-shore and his sea kayak was also saved”, said Rieghard.
Hayden was not injured and he told NSRI that the off-shore wind had suddenly picked up while he was paddling along the coast and the wind blew him out to sea despite his best efforts to paddle towards the shore.
Hayden was reunited with his fiancee who had waited anxiously on shore for news of his fate.
NSRI commend Hayden for having a communication device while out paddling and for storing the local sea rescue emergency phone number into his phone.
“We may have found him eventually, said Rieghard, but the cellphone communication certainly helped in this case as our sea rescue Discovery rescue runner is certainly a lot more visible than a sea kayak and it was an essential piece of safety equipment that the casualty had with him on this day.”
