KEY POINTS:
Billy Mackie was emotional but relieved to be home for his wife's birthday yesterday.
The 49-year-old was also sore after rowing more than six hours with makeshift paddles during 28 hours lost in high seas with four relatives.
The group, including Mr Mackie's 13-year-old daughter Jane, was rescued
from a 5.5m boat on Tuesday afternoon and reunited with about 50 whanau members who had been anxiously awaiting their return at Maketu, on the Bay of Plenty coast.
It has emerged that a portable radio and distress flares for the boat were inadvertently left in a bucket at the home of the skipper.
Mr Mackie spoke to the Herald yesterday morning on his way to see the skipper, his cousin Te Rua Toetoe, at Ngongotaha, near Rotorua.
Mr Mackie, who is from Taupo, said he had shed a few tears while driving, "thinking about the ordeal".
"It's going to take a while before it leaves my mind I suppose."
He had spoken to the rescue helicopter crews who spotted the boat and winched him, Jane, Mr Toetoe's 15-year-old son Te Kameta, and 12-year-old Henare Gardiner to safety, and was full of praise for those involved in the search.
"They were awesome," he said.
The group had seen the helicopters and other aircraft brave high winds, driving rain, and poor visibility. An Air Force Orion had flown overhead in the night not long after a cargo ship went past, and Mr Mackie said it was no surprise the crews could not see the boat in the 5m swells.
The drama began on Monday morning, when the five went out for a short snorkelling trip for mussel and kina to a reef off Maketu. Within a couple of hours, the weather turned bad and they began to drift.
Two texts Mr Mackie sent reached land, but with no radio or distress flares, searchers could not pinpoint their location.
Tauranga Coastguard said the adults on the boat had each thought the other had picked up the bucket with the VHS radio and flares.
"It was a simple error," a spokesman said. "There is an element of negligence there but I wouldn't call it irresponsibility."
He said the boat was very seaworthy and those involved in the search were just relieved the group had been found safe and well.
Before the drama at sea Mr Mackie wanted just immediate family to celebrate his wife Ruby's 45th birthday, but that plan had changed.
Although he did not feel up to a big party - "I just want to be thankful I'm home with the family" - he had invited the whanau who gathered at Maketu to his house for a barbecue.
Mr Toetoe and his wife, Sophie, were also planning to attend a barbecue put on by their church.
Mrs Toetoe said her husband was emotional on Tuesday night but was feeling better by the morning.
"He seems a box of bubbles now. The weight's been lifted."
Her son was also in high spirits.
She said the family had been overwhelmed by support from people who had left flowers on their doorstep, prayed, lit candles and tied ribbons around the Ngongotaha shops.
On Tuesday night, people at Maketu fed the group, and the family had given a koha to the marae and surf lifesaving club, which helped in the search and opened its clubrooms for the whanau.