OK, Truth of the story is this.
Three guys went out to the reef off Seal Rocks to ride some waves, one on a bow kite, had an issue with a relaunch and decided to self rescue. He passed his board on to his mate who was riding with him on a C kite. The C kiter put the board on his lap and started to ride to shore, but the board knocked and released his shackle accidentally and by the time he got his bar back his lines were a birdsnest.
The third kiter stayed with the C kiter to offer comfort as his level of riding wasn't up to rescue a downed kiter with board and kite. They were probably 2km out at this stage. I waited on the beach for about 45 minutes before calling the water police as we couldn't see the c kite anymore and were concerned for his safety (big fish out there!).
After speaking to the cops, I was told they would be right out. After about 30 minutes I decided to jump on Tinas kite and race out to offer help as the C kiter was even further out and drifting downwind beyond the reefs at a steady rate. The third kiter was with him the whole time, meanwhile the Bow kiter was slowly chugging back to the beach under his own steam albeit slowly and was quite relaxed.
I checked on the bow, he was OK, so went off after the other who was a long way further out and downwind, at this point the Channel 7 heliwankers appeared. I reached the kiter and grabbed his board and started heading to the beach, then returned to find the third kiter bodydragging them both in, so I grabbed the kite and harness and took them both back to the beach. I went back out to see how they were going and they indicated they were OK. They had travelled a good distance in and were making good ground. At this point the Copper chopper appeared and followed them into the beach the last 500 metres.
I started heading back upwind to the bow kiter who was now inside the outer reef and was pretty relaxed. The Whitfords Rescue boat drove straight past him despite my wild flailing arms trying to attract their attention, a few minutes later they realised they missed the rescue and returned to the bow kiter along with the clubbies from Mullaloo who eventually pulled him on board and saved him self rescuing the last few hundred metres.
The real story should have been Why the emergency rescue services took over an hour and a quarter before they turned up. By the time they arrived, everything was cool and under control. I missed the news but can imagine the bloody story. Probably something like reckless kiters endanger poor volunteer rescuers lives in massive seas and gale force winds. ****ers
there was 1.0m seas and 25 knots of wind.
Dont get me wrong, I'm stoked the rescuers eventually turned up but it took well over an hour to see them finally arrive in time to see us all back at the beach.
Conclusion is: If you need help with a rescue at Mullaloo or Pinnaroo, dont call the police or Whitfords rescue, call the Mullaloo surf clubbies. I ought to have done that in the first case, just didn't think it would take so long for the rescue peeps to get their ****e together.
Alls well ends well, nobody eaten and no gear damaged or lost. As for channel 7, I even rang the news room and gave them the real story so they wouldn't sensationalize it, guess it dont matter huh, the news is the news and it sells advertising space so it better be interesting!
Good winds
. As I was leaving, I even stupidly joked with another regular how 'the guys out there' were the *real* Pinnaroo hardcore crew 
. Must make a point of looking round a bit more in future.
. After yesterday, I'm thinking that we might bring the boat down at all times whether we are teaching or not to help others out. Truth be known we have never used it to rescue one of our students, but have used it many times to rescue other kiters and their boards more than anything else. We do this for goodwill and as a courtesy for kiters at Pinnaroo. Half of the time we are stopping lessons mid way, using our fuel and only occassionally get a 6 pack.
