KEY POINTS:
An 82-year-old diver, who was rescued shivering on a rock six hours after becoming separated from his boat in the Bay of Islands, has vowed to carry on diving alone.
Walter Pattinson went out in his boat alone about 9.30am on Monday to dive for crayfish and the alarm was raised when he had failed to return to shore by 7pm.
A Bay Rescue coastguard boat found the octogenarian sitting on a rock at Cape Wiwiki, west of Cape Brett, just after 10pm, said Northern Region Coastguard spokeswoman Jo Ottey.
He had been separated from his boat six hours earlier, she said, 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."
Common sense suggested Mr Pattinson should have had someone in the boat if he was diving, Ms Ottey said.
But last night Mr Pattinson, who dives with an air tank but doesn't use a buoyancy compensator, insisted he likes diving alone from his 3.3m runabout.
"I've always dived alone. I like it. I don't want the responsibility of looking after someone else."
Mr Pattinson said he had set out from Paihia in his aluminium boat with its 20hp outboard and headed for the Ninepin Rocks area near the entrance to the Bay of Islands.
He anchored his boat and went down and speared a fish. He surfaced before diving again and then brought up three crayfish. He descended again but when he surfaced this time, "my boat had left me".
An offshore wind was blowing the boat into deeper water.
"I made the right decision not to swim after it, otherwise I might have stayed under," the self-confessed rogue diver said yesterday at home in Paihia.
Mr Pattinson swam into a channel and made it on to the Ninepin Rocks. At home, his wife, Alva, alerted emergency services after he had failed to show up by 7pm.
"They came out looking for me and I yelled as hard as I could."
Mr Pattinson was happy yesterday afternoon when he learned his boat had been found afloat by a gamefish boat in the Bird Rock area near Cape Brett. The skipper had offered to tow it into Paihia.
Mr Pattinson says he's been diving for about 30 to 40 years and usually goes out once a week.
After Monday's experience, will he go out again?
"Well, I'm painting tomorrow so it might have to be at the weekend."
