Grief for friend missing in surf

Rhyan Rego. Photo / Supplied

A friend of the man who vanished a week ago at a notorious surf beach has spoken of her anguish when she realised he may have been swept out to sea.

Rhyan Rego, 21, was last seen walking into the surf at Muriwai last Thursday night. He could not swim and was uncomfortable around water, but it is thought he went a short way into the surf.

He had been at the beach for about an hour with five friends from Unitec when two of the group decided to go and get takeaways.

As they got to their car Mr Rego was changing into togs.

"He said he wanted to go for a swim as well. I told him to be careful because the current was really strong," said Olia, who did not want her last name published.

"We knew Rhyan could not swim. But he's the most sensible person out of all of us, that's why we didn't think he'd go into the water..."

When Olia and her friend returned to the beach, she could not see Mr Rego or the others.

"We thought maybe they'd walked off to the other beach. We drove around for about half an hour and when we came back to the beach they were in the water.

"When they got to the car they asked, 'Where's Rhyan?' and we said, 'We thought Rhyan was with you.' We called police straight away.

"I was just hoping that he was still fine and had walked off somewhere ..." Lifesaving manager Andy Kent said that when Mr Rego went missing the waves at Muriwai were about 3m high and it was low tide - a dangerous combination.

"It's not uncommon with surf that big for waves with a whole volume of water to sweep up the beach. He may have only been in ankle-deep and been caught unaware by a sweeping wave and ended up well beyond his depth.

"Where he went missing, there are also pretty notorious rips that pretty much flow straight out. If he wasn't a swimmer, it's unlikely if that happened that he would make it back to shore."