Salvamento Marítimo and the Guardia Civil spent the best part of a day searching for a kayak user who had gone out fishing and gone missing.
His drifting kayak had been found but the man, whose wife confirmed that he had not returned that day, was nowhere to be seen.
This all happened on the 26th of last month, starting when the Centro Operativo de Servicios (COS) belonging to the Guardia Civil, received a call from the marina in Fuengirola about a kayak.
A patrol car from the Mijas Guardia post went to the marina and questioned the young man who had found a drifting kayak whilst out in his own small craft and brought it back to the marina.
He had come across the kayak off the Calaburras lighthouse. Inside were the paddles, two fishing rods, other fishing equipment and a portable GPS device. He deduced that whoever was in the kayak had fallen overboard, so off his own back, he began searching the area in case he could locate him or her.
Giving up after a while, he towed the kayak back to the marina in Fuengirola and alerted the authorities.
Having questioned him, the officers alerted Salvamento Marítimo and a full search was mounted. With the evening closing in, back on land the Guardia Civil received a call from a woman who said that her husband had phoned her to say that he was going out fishing in his kayak but since then she had had no news from him and was logically worried.
What had happened was that the kayak had tipped and he had fallen out when the wind shifted and despite his trying to reach it, the wind kept blowing it further and further away. And there he remained, keeping afloat for several hours until he was picked up by a pleasure craft carrying tourists. They then took him to the marina in Marbella.
A lucky ending to what could easily have become a tragic event.
(News: Fuengirola, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)
Keywords: Kayak, Adrift, Salvamento Maritimo, Marbella Marina, Fuengirola Marina, Pleasure Craft, Located
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