You might see something like this in TV series or disaster movies: the word “HELP” is scrawled in giant letters in the sand while an unfortunate couple is shipwrecked.
But that’s exactly what happened to a Queensland couple who were stranded on an uninhabited island overnight after their five-metre-long fishing boat was thrown against the rocks in a violent storm.
The Clairview couple had set out on a multi-day fishing and camping trip around the Percy Islands, but things didn’t go quite according to plan.
As weather conditions worsened on Tuesday evening, they anchored at low tide off Avoid Island, about 100 km south of Mackay, in the hope that the bad weather would pass.
But then a violent storm created huge, five-meter-high waves that hurled their boat against the nearby rocks.
With the boat too damaged to move, the couple sought shelter in the island’s mudflats, activated a distress signal at dawn and scrawled “HELP” in giant letters on the island’s shore.
RACQ CQ Rescue received the transmitter at 10am on Wednesday morning and found the couple in distress waving wildly at the helicopter crew.
The couple had waited until the weather cleared and they were sure the island was uninhabited before triggering their signal, The Daily Mercury reported.
With some cuts and bruises, but otherwise unharmed, the couple then had to walk one kilometer to the island’s runway where the rescue helicopter could land.
Mackay Police then took them straight to their home in Clairview – no doubt very tired, very hungry and with a great story to tell the grandchildren.
