Marine Rescue saves stranded kayaker

Marine Rescue NSW saved a female paddler who was left stranded in Budgewoi Lake for half an hour on February 16.

First located by the Westpac Rescue chopper, TL 20 skipper

Ian Hodge said the woman was pulled from the water just after 8pm.

“She was conscious and responsive when we got her out of the water,” Hodge said.

“We got her onboard and wrapped her up in a space blanket to try and bring up her body temperature; she’d been in the water for a while.

“Her kayak had taken on a lot of water.

“We retrieved it and took her to the Peel St jetty near our Toukley base.” Hodge said it took less than

The rescue operation on February 16

10 minutes from retrieving the woman for the Marine Rescue crew to hand her over to waiting NSW Ambulance paramedics who assessed her on scene.

NSW Ambulance said the woman didn’t require treatment in hospital.

Marine Rescue Tuggerah

Lakes Unit Commander Bob Sutton said TL 20 was en-route to assist a grounded vessel on Lake Munmorah when the call came to help the kayaker.

“The crew of Ian Hodge, Peter Fischer, Steve Noakes and our Radio Operator Don Hobbs did a great job,” Sutton said.

“They had to triage the whole thing by which job was more important.

“A person in the water is always more important but once they had rescued the kayaker and got her to paramedics, they immediately went to assist the grounded vessel.”

Sutton said kayakers can get caught out on inland waters.

“When it’s calm it’s beautiful, but the wind changed last night and people can get into trouble,” he said on February 17.

“Because of the shallow nature of the lakes, they blow up.”

The rescue was the second involving a kayaker after a fisherman was collected by Marine Rescue after getting into trouble on Tuggerah Lake on Sunday, February 12.

Source: Media release, Feb 17 Marine Rescue NSW

Cameryn embarks on dream science and maths degree

Gorokan High School graduate, Cameryn Smider of Lake Munmorah, is raring to go on her dream double degree, thanks to a new scholarship at University of Sydney.

She’ll be studying a Bachelor of Science and Master of Mathematical Sciences and is the first person in her family to go to university.

The university kicked off its biggest Welcome Program last week as students started arriving for the start of the academic year.

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“We will always stand up for the environment and our communities that care deeply about our pristine coastline, and the Federal Government must give the community certainty in their waters, as we will do in ours,” he said.

“The NSW Government’s

Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Mark Scott said it was a lively time in the university calendar when students made new friends and reconnected with old ones, worked out their areas of interest in orientation activities to give them a taste of how exciting uni life could be.

“We want our students’ lives to be changed by their positive experiences here at Sydney –not just by what they study, but through the people they meet and the connections they make,” he said.

There was a special welcome for the first cohort of students, like Cameryn, beginning their degrees through the MySydney Entry and Scholarship scheme.

“We are delighted to have made more than 1200 MySydney offers and are expecting our biggest cohort of students from underrepresented areas ever to join us this year,” Professor Scott said.

Cameryn said having the scholarship would definitely help her worry less about the financial side of things.

“I’ll be putting it towards paying off my degree, but also for study resources like textbooks, stationary, a laptop and lab coat, as well as travel expenses to help me commute every day.

“It will also give me a support network with other like-minded people getting a scholarship, so it will really help the transition to uni as well,” Cameryn said.