Stranded on the water. Rescued by Police!

You ever plan a trip away with friends only to have it blow up in your face?

Well I just had one!

I will try to keep it short, however to fully tell the tale I might have to get a little deep.

I live on an island in remote Northern Territory of Australia. Bathurst Island to be exact. it is about 80km offshore. About 50 miles in the old money.

two friends and I drove about 65km to the other side of the island to go fishing in my boat to a place called Ranku. the drive took about 2.5 hours as the dirt road is pretty badly rutted and quite rough. By the time we got there we were tired and ready for food and a couple of beers. we stretch out our beds and set in for sleep with alarms for 5am.

up bright and early to a gorgeous sunrise and a feeling of a big day ahead. How right I was. We launched the boat a little 4.2 meter side console with a 50hp Evinrude ETEC on the back. We got out and found some juicy snags straight away. we could see the fish on them but the omen for the day was a catchish hooked on a barramundi lure first cast. We should have packed up then and there.

but we moved on and set three crab pots and made our way to our next fishing spot. I was flicking my trusty Gold Bomber lure when I hooked my mate in the chest and created a birds nest in my baitcaster that took me an hour to unravel. Another bad omen for the day. The next omen was the fact that we couldn't catch fish. the big Barra could be easily seen in the clear pristine waters but they were simply not hitting the lures.

The wind picked up and we decided to shelter in a small creek. the sounder busted up with large school of fish so we stayed for about 45 minutes here without much luck either. deciding it was time to check crab pots we headed back through some pretty big chop and we all got wet in the boat.

the pots yielded two good size mud crabs which we were looking forward to eating that night. as we were reversing out of the small inlet of the last pot the boat decided it didn't want to run any more. Thinking nothing of it, I pumped up the fuel and engine started and we were off again back to the boat ramp which is about a 20 minute trip form where we were.

but the engine sputtered and died again and did not restart. we drifted into shallow water and anchored up to see if we could find the fault. Quickly realising that we had run out of fuel (with complete shock as we left with 40 litres and only traveled 27km - 17 miles)

luckily for us we had a SAT phone with us so we called for help in the form of my mates girlfriend who just so happens to be on the police force here on the island. She was awesome and got a local guy, the only bloke with a boat on that side of the island to have a boat to come out and give us some fuel. By this stage we were well and truly stuck on the mud bank and told Dave the guy that came to give us fuel that we would have to wait about 5 hours for the tide to change and re-float us. So off he went back to Ranku.

with not much else to do we decided to make the most of the bait we had and fish from our stranded position. we seemed to be only catching cat fish so we decided to invent the Australian Catfish Championship. After 2 hours of fishing I was crowned overall winner with 13 catfish to Justin's 12 however he did manage to catch 2 sharks to my 1. we decided to have a dinner of oranges and wait patiently until the boat again floated by itself. we managed to push ourselves out into deeper water around midnight attempted to start the boat.

and

the ETEC wanted nothing of it and we had to anchor up again. Out came the SAT phone and this is where the shit really seemed to hit the fan. We rang Dave to see if he could come back out and give us a tow back in only to be told that Dave had not returned from seeing us several hours earlier and had not made contact with family. He had flares and an emergency beacon but neither had been set off. We became very worried for his safety as we didnt know what had happened to him.

We rang the island police again and informed them of Daves non appearance which set in motion a nervous wait. another phone call about 1am informed us that we would be rescued by Darwin Water Police but they wouldn't be able to launch until first light sunday morning. So we had to settle in for the night and wait it out.

the next couple of hours seemed to drag on forever and it got pretty cold out on the water. a slight breeze made our wet clothing chilly and thankfully we had a space blanket that could be shared around. Now 3 blokes on a 4.2m vessel with crab pots, cooler boxes and rods doesn't leave much room for sleeping. Thankfully the local crocodiles decided to avoid us with only one small 2.5m croc coming to visit to chew on some catfish while we were fishing.

the dawn broke and we were exhausted. nil sleep and knowledge that dave still hadn't been found after speaking with the Darwin Water Police again. We were let know that Dave the local bloke had not been found overnight and was still missing. We were told our rescue would be soon and we had to sit and wait. with the sun peaking itself over the horizon there was a vessel anchored about 1km away in the middle of the strait not moving. we signaled the boat with out head torch and received confirmation light flashes in return. we automatically knew it was Dave as he was the only other boat in the area and also the size of the vessel was too small to be the police boat. An anxiouos 1 hour wait saw the big 11.5m Niad boat with twin 300HP engines on the back

The police boat stopped at Dave's boat and gave him some fuel and then they motored up toward our position. After a bit of friendly banter we transferred a passenger off to Dave and then hooked up the tow rope to the front and off we went for the 20 minute journey back into the boat ramp.

I would like to thank the Darwin Water Police, and the police on the island for their assistance and help getting us back safely. I would like to thank Dave the local hero who unwittingly gave us his last 15 litres of fuel. and thanks goes to the two guys I was with, Justin and Berkley. Without them both, it might have been a different outcome.

so short message from the story... keep an emergency Beacon or SAT phone with you at all times.

Cheers

Brad