A 52-year-old Auckland woman found herself getting blown out to sea last Thursday, 4 December, after attempting to take a dinghy to shore from the yacht she’d been staying on without any boating experience.
Waiheke Police Sergeant Raymond Matthews says the yacht was anchored in Oneroa Bay, and the woman apparently had a disagreement with somebody else on board and jumped in the dinghy to head for shore. However the outboard motor wasn’t working and the woman had no idea how to row the dinghy, so at the mercy of wind and tide she was blown out to sea. Sergeant Matthews says if the winds hadn’t shifted, she would have reached Coromandel, if she was lucky. Instead hours later she was pushed back to crash onto the rocks near Oneroa Beach. The Police Eagle Helicopter flew in to rescue her from the rocks then landed at Oneroa Beach to let her off around midday.
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