What started as a simple day of snorkeling near a small island off the coast of Queensland, Australia turned into a rescue operation for a group of five who were separated from their boat. After getting in the water to begin snorkeling, the three men and two women realized the anchor of their boat had broken (or was not secured properly), and the boat drifted away. They swam to the nearby rocky island to wait, writing a huge SOS on a nearby sandbank to hopefully attract attention.

It wasn’t long before Queensland Water Police heard news of the abandoned boat that was floating between Brampton and Cockermouth islands. When they were unable to locate the passengers, they called in assistance from the RACQ-CQ rescue helicopter. After three hours of searching, the helicopter found the stranded group because of the SOS message. In total, they were stranded for nine hours, but were airlifted from the island as soon as they were found. A boat was not used in the rescue, as the rocky area around the island was too shallow and difficult to reach by boat.

Lyn Forbes-Smith was one of the snorkelers and said the group was worried because they were stuck on the island without shelter, food, or water. All five were expected home by friends and family, so she was confident they would only have to stay one night on the island at most before authorities would be notified. “We just looked for the highest ground, we looked for rocks where five of us could huddle together because we didn’t really want to separate, and we wanted to be out of the wind as best as possible,” she told the Daily Mail.

Image from Piper on Wikimedia Commons