KEY POINTS:
An 82-year-old man was rescued from a rock during a diving trip in the Bay of Islands.
The man went out in his boat alone about 9.30am yesterday and the alarm was raised when he failed to return by 7pm.
Northern Region Coastguard spokeswoman Jo Ottey said the Bay Rescue coastguard boat was alerted and just after 10pm found the elderly man sitting on a rock at Cape Wiwiki, west of Cape Brett.
She said he had been separated from his 4.5m boat six hours earlier and had apparently swum to the rock.
"He was cold. There was a request for an ambulance to meet them when they got back in but he was taken home by police. He did not end up going to hospital," she said.
The man's boat had not been found and a navigation alert had been put out, she said.
Common sense suggested the man should have had someone in the boat if he was diving and that he should not have gone out diving alone, she said.
- NZPA
