Rock fishing tragedy

Here's a tragic case happened near Sydney, Australia. The above picture shows a Buddhist monk prays for a fisherman feared drowned after he was washed off rocks at Port Kembla, while relatives look on. (Picture by SYLVIA LIBER.) As the Illawarra Mecury reports this morning:

The 31-year-old man from Hurlstone Park was rock fishing at the foot of Heritage Park just after 9pm last Sunday when he was hit by a freak wave as he was packing up to leave.

The last known sighting was by a rescue helicopter the night of his disappearance, when he was spotted floating face down in the water, but they lost sight of him shortly after.

Intensive searches were held daily; a grey spray jacket was located last Monday, although police could not confirm whether it belonged to the missing man.

And

While police have been combing the surface of the water near where the man went missing, a treacherous swell has prevented divers from approaching the area immediately adjacent to rocks where the tragedy occurred.

As Wikipedia describes it: "Rock fishing is fishing from rocky outcrops into the sea. It is a popular pastime in Australia and New Zealand. It can be a dangerous pastime and claims many lives each year." Here's a picture of "Extreme rock fishing" off Muriwai, New Zealand, given in Wikipedia accompanied their article:

It certainly looks exciting and clearly safety is not a main concern on the minds of those people out there. First and foremost question on my mind when I saw this picture is naturally how do they cope when a freaque wave hits? None of them wearing a life jacket, I am sure they have heard of freaque wave encounters. May be they all think freaque waves are only rare things that happens to the other people. That could be very true. But no one can be sure that will not happen to you. May be the next wave comes in the next moment, before you realize, . . . . Oh well, my knees tremble even by think about them. Evidently I am not the one who would enjoy rock fishing by any means!