A decision to see where a “downwind dash” would take them almost turned into a nightmare for three people who were swept out to sea on their swimming pool toys.
The two men and a woman, aged 19 to 21, took their lives in their hands when they decided to go with the wind and were spotted drifting away off the Langebaan yacht club on Wednesday night.
Witnesses who saw two swimming pool lilos and an inflatable canoe had initially thought that three children were floating at sea.
National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) volunteers and Metro EMS launched their rescue boats while NSRI crewman Craig Maltby stayed ashore to keep watch on the position of the trio.
Maltby had noticed them nearing Schaapen Island and he had prepared to launch a kayak after he noticed that they had overshot the island and were headed toward Mykonos, Darius van Niekerk, the NSRI Mykonos station commander, said.
Van Niekerk said NSRI volunteers were worried that the trio would be blown out to sea by a 36-knot wind.
“Fearing the worst, Craig flagged down a kite-surfer whom he asked to go over to the three, who we still suspected to be children, and try to get them to huddle together until the rescue craft arrived.
“The kite-surfer reached them about half a nautical mile offshore.
“They told him something about being on a downwind dash, effectively succumbing to the wind to be blown to where they were hoping the wind would take them, all fully kitted in wetsuits, and appearing to be prepared to take the gamble of either making it safely to their destination or failing and being blown out to sea,” he said.
Van Niekerk said the trio had managed to paddle to shore at the same time as rescue crews.
They refused to give their names before “dashing” away, he said.
He said that rescuers suspected this was to avoid giving any of their details or to “avoid giving rescuers a valid explanation to their obvious foolhardiness”.
NSRI spokesman Craig Lambinon said: “NSRI strongly feels that these three not only gambled with their lives but also possibly gave no consideration to the rescue teams who would obviously respond once eye-witnesses had spotted them.
“Had they disappeared into the night the rescue operation could easily have gone on through the night.”
In another incident, at 2.15pm on Thursday 19-year-old Jason James, visiting from Centurion in Gauteng, nearly drowned while swimming at Melkbosstrand beach.
City Disaster Risk spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said a member of the public, who was on a jet-ski nearby, assisted James, bringing him to shore. He was treated at the scene for secondary drowning symptoms.
Solomons said a Metro EMS ambulance transported James to the New Somerset Hospital in Green Point for further medical treatment and observation.
Late on Thursday he was in a stable condition.
There have been a number of other drowning and near-drowning incidents across the province in the last week, including:
* On Monday a Bellville man, Anwar Hoosain, drowned while trying to save his two children who were hit by a wave at Camps Bay’s Glen Beach.
* Also on Monday, two men drowned in a dam at Worcester.
* On Sunday, a 60-year-old man drowned at the Dalebrook Tidal Pool between St James and Kalk Bay. He was reportedly under the influence of alcohol.
* At least 14 others, six of them children, were rescued while swimming at various city beaches and pools. - Cape Times