Friends of experienced diver Bruce Porter have reacted with shock to his death after being hit by a boat.

Dramatic details of surfer Darren Mills' lucky escape from a shark attack emerged yesterday, as the British immigrant began his recovery from serious injuries.

It was meant to be a leisurely float down a river. But two men needed rescuing overnight after their lilos ran out of deep water and they ended trudging down a riverbed.

Half an hour before Fiona Gooder died while trying to save her foster daughter at a Northland beach, she sent her husband a text saying she "was in paradise".

Tired, panicking and gulping sea water, a grandfather struggled to hold on to his 8-year-old granddaughter in strong currents at an East Auckland beach yesterday.

A Mexican fisherman who says he drifted for months across the Pacific Ocean before washing up on a remote Marshall Islands atoll is on his way home.

A New Zealander who survived being shipwrecked in shark-infested Fijian waters has lost part of his arm in an accident on board a foreign fishing vessel.

Eight divers were rescued from the sea in Hauraki Gulf when their inflatable boat began to take on water yesterday .

A key question in the trial of Easy Rider owner Gloria Davis is her knowledge of the safety issues surrounding the vessel.

The skipper of a boat that sank in Foveaux Strait resulting in the deaths of eight people made a catalogue of errors, the trial of his widow heard yesterday.

The widow of the Easy Rider skipper faces trial today over the vessel's deadly sinking in Foveaux Strait nearly two years ago.

A diving incident near Wellington has claimed the life of a man in his early thirties.

Police in North Otago are "desperately" seeking witnesses to help shed light on how a man was left paralysed for life after becoming tangled in a boating rope.

One person is dead and another critically injured after a high speed crash on a river in the Hawkes Bay.

A police search yesterday failed to find 40-year-old Aucklander Peato Samele Ilalio, who is presumed drowned after he went missing while fishing from Kauri Point.

The parents of an American teenager missing at sea on the stricken yacht Nina are vowing to stay Downunder until she is found alive.

The death of a watersider who died aboard a ship at the Port of Lyttelton yesterday will hit the close knit workforce and community hard, Maritime Union of New Zealand says.

Matt Cairns just wanted to go for a quick swim to cool off before he got married on a sunny Gisborne Saturday.

A man has died on board a ship at the port of Lyttelton today.

Less than a week after injuring her shoulder taking down a man with a sawn-off shotgun, an off-duty policewoman dived into a river to save a girl from drowning.

A 54-year-old man died in the sea south of Auckland yesterday as he tried to swim back to shore when the boat he was on ran out of fuel.

A Kaiaua man is being credited with the courageous rescue of a stricken boatie.