A fisherman says he is lucky to be alive after a freak wave threw his boat 100 metres on to rocks off Port Kembla, south of Sydney.
Chris Howarth and his two crew were rescued on Sunday morning after they were left stranded on Five Islands Nature Reserve.
They were forced to abandon their $50,000 boat as they waited for a rescue helicopter.
The crew failed to spot the wave which forced the boat sideways during an early morning fishing trip, Mr Howarth said.
"Where that wave came from, I don't know," he told reporters.
"We didn't see it. The first thing we knew about it was the boat was going sideways and we were up on the rocks."
Fearing for their safety, the drenched crew abandoned the boat, with one of them calling for help from his mobile phone.
"Me being the skipper, I ordered everyone out while we could," Mr Howarth added.
"I have just got to thank all of those guys, the police, maritime service board, everybody.
"We caught a hell of a lot of fish, they're all gone too."
There are some telltale details regarding the encounter not usually included in this kind of general reporting, e.g. the crews simply did not see the wave until the boat was forced onto the rocks. This is clearly an evidence that the wave must be a freaque one. Unfortunately we are still left with not known exactly what kind of wave that was -- a wave that we know it had happened, we can only describe the aftermath, but we can certainly not able to give any explanation for its happening. That's the essence of freaque wave encounter we face presently. No amount of theoretical mumble jumble can remedy that!
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