EPIRB, BORDER FORCE AIRCRAFT and a BOAT RESCUE

- October 17, 2022

Recently the Garngi rangers responded to an emergency beacon that had been activated southeast of us.

Some local Croker Island residents were returning from Maningrida, and were overdue. Their family had contacted the rangers expressing concern so we contacted to Water Police who coordinate all marine searches in the NT. They had just received a call from the Australian Search and Rescue people down south about a beacon activation. They provided the coordinates for the beacon - about 45 kilometres south east of us. They requested that we respond ASAP. While preparing to depart, they had an Australian Border Force aircraft fly over the site. They confirmed a vessel anchored about 150 meters off the coast with 7 occupants, one waving a fuel jerry can. We quickly filled a couple of jerry cans with petrol and departed. The photo below shows Templer Island passing to our left side.

There were a couple of storms building over the mainland however over the sea was fine.

Just after we passed De Courcy Heads on our right we spotted the vessel - exactly where we expected to see it.

The occupants were very happy to see us. Very few Indigenous people carry safety equipment like epirb beacons. These people had not long acquired one and were very surprised how quick the search and rescue system responded. That is the mainland of Australia just beyond the vessel.

They confirmed that they had run out of fuel - as they had become dis-orientated at night and used more fuel than planned. The rangers took some of their passengers to lighten their load and we transferred the fuel we brought to their boat. After some refreshments we were underway.

Looking west towards Cape Cockburn on the way home.

We were hoping that the problem was nothing more than just running out of fuel. If we had to tow them all the way back to Croker Island, the journey would have been much slower.