Bennett Looke – 21st Feb 2026
On the 17th of Feb, 2026, I departed on a day of fishing at Port Stephens NSW. The plan for the day was to go to the Newcastle Canyons, approximately 30 nautical miles (55km) offshore, a trip which would only take us approximately 1.5 hours when travelling with the current. When checking the weather, the days swell would only reach 1.1 meters, with minimal wind until a pickup at 3pm, however the direction of swell and wind was not noted properly. By that I mean the implication of wind, swell and current was not considered on its impact on our return trip, as when fishing in Sydney these conditions are not an issue in our vessel.
Following the collection of baitfish, we headed to the fishing spot where we arrived at around 10am. Upon arrival, we go our gear set up and I began trolling, which we continued for the next few hours until I thought we should begin travelling home before the wind picked up in the afternoon, this was around 2:30pm. Whilst trolling, we had a large fish following some baits, one amazing bite which was sadly dropped and the coolest part of the day, a fighter jet passing 10 meters above the boat at full speed. How amazing it was. After packing up our gear, we began heading North initially making good pace as the seas were still reasonably calm. Although, as predicted, 3pm brought higher winds which began to pickup the size of the waves and caused them to break early.
To begin this wasn’t all bad, we just had to slow down our speed and take it easier so that we did not take too much impact. Generally, when it is only my Dad and I on the boat, we are able to punch through these waves as we are used to bracing for the impact caused by these conditions. But in saying that, the wave which caused our problems is one I have never experienced before.
Within a set of particularly nasty waves, we hit one wave which broke very early, crashing on top of our vessel as we punched straight through it and causing us to become airborne. As it had no back behind the wave, we dropped approximately 1.5 meters and landed with considerable force. Our third passenger had put her back out severely and was in immediate, severe pain. This occurred at around 6:30pm. Upon considering our options, the injured individual and my Dad decided we would continue North to Port Stephens, however we were forced to continue at a much slower speed (groundspeed of about 5-10 knots at maximum), pushing our ETA from 7pm to at least 9pm, another 2 hours of travelling in the grueling weather.
As we continued, every impact from every wave caused pain to the injured passenger, so much so that we decided it safest to radio Marine Rescue Port Stephens and request medical assistance via helicopter. I also suggested that we should turn south and travel with the current to Newcastle, where we could get sooner attention to the injured individual. After discussing our options with Marine Rescue Port Stephens and Marine Police Port Stephens, it was decided that a Helicopter would not be viable, as the design of our vessel would be difficult to move the patient from her current position and the weather would not permit a safe pickup. Also to note, at this point in time, we were halfway up Stockton Beach and could see Anna Bay, so the injured individual and skipper had wished to continue North so she could be treated closer to home; however we could never have anticipated how long it would take to reach our destination, and the situations which would soon occur during this trip. This agonizingly slow trip would prove to be one of the most harrowing experiences I have gone through.
We continued North slowly but surely, maintaining regular updates with Marine Rescue Port Stephens and doing our best to keep the injured comfortable. For a while, I watched from the side of the vessel onwards, calling “Throttle!” when a wave appeared to break early, so my Dad could drop the throttle, allowing the vessel to calmy roll over the wave instead of punching through and causing more insult to injury upon our now patient. Soon, evening turned into dusk and the waves were becoming harder to predict with the lack of light, and I began shivering from the cold of the wind (although the water was quite warm). Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, we made it East of Anna Bay, however the relief of being close to the protected waters would quickly wear off when we ran out of fuel. We are prepared for this occurring, as we carry 40L of spare fuel (now 80 following this incident) with us, so we hurried to pour more fuel into the tank continue our journey. However almost 20 minutes of refueling had already pushed us South, so we had lost progress. This is also the most dangerous thing about the conditions, as losing power because of the fuel meant we became side on with the oncoming waves, making us susceptible to rolling over and capsizing the vessel. Luckily all was ok and we were able to continue.
From that point, all appeared well. We were making good progress, the conditions were beginning to calm ever so slightly and the stars looked beautiful. As I looked out of the port side I could see Anna bay become Fisherman’s bay, then One mile beach and eventually Fingal Bay and Fingal Island. As we rounded the corner of Fingal Island, we had entered the semi protected area between Cabbage Tree Island, Boondelbah Island and Fingal Island and the seas became so much calmer. Up ahead, we could see the red glowing buoy which marked the Southern Head of Port Stephens, a sight we were so so happy to see. As we continued, I noticed a red light up ahead and assumed it was another buoy, as the darkness did not allow used to discern shapes of anything other than the distant land masses. I will never forget the moment the trawler decided to turn its lights on. I was looking out the boats windscreen as it dripped endlessly with water, when the supposed red buoy ahead flashed bright white, and a huge trawler appeared out of nowhere, as if the flying dutchman had decided to give us a surprise showing. I screamed “F***ING BOAT”, and my Dad Slammed our vessel into reverse, allowing us to miss the trawler by what I thought was barely 2 meters.
A man stepped out of the trawlers cabin and after I gave him a few kind, lighthearted and not at all unfriendly comments toward him and his crew, he stated he did indeed have his lights on, before going back inside and immediately turning them off again. Following this, we arrived inside the heads of Port Stephens and made our way to the Nelson Bay Marina. Here my family met us and we had to go collect the most unfriendly, arrogant ambos, as instead of meeting the injured person at the vessel, they decided to sit in the vehicle until someone went and got them. After some stupid comments “why didn’t you call for help” (We did lady) and “You should have come in sooner” (Gee why didn’t I think of that *insert facepalm*), we finally had our injured passenger on land and on her way to the hospital.
After trailering our boat and driving home, the day was finally over, and what a day it was. I believe my pop, whose ashes we had released earlier, wanted us to have a fishing adventure like some of his. Dad lore achieved, what an adventure it certainly was. After getting checked over, the injured passenger had not undergone any severe injury, just slight compression and bruising of the back and is now going well.
Looking back onto the situation at hand, whilst there was no possible way we could have known what would have occurred. A few things could certainly have been done better. Marine Rescue could have been notified straight away, although we still notified them fairly soon after the initial incident occurred; When the severity of the injury has the potential of being life threatening, it would have been wiser to turn to Newcastle and get immediate medical attention instead of trying to push through the conditions just because we could see the destination closer then it really was. Finally, upon planning of future fishing trips, or any adventures for that matter; I will certainly do my due diligence to research the area we are going to in order to gain a better understanding of the conditions which may occur unexpectedly.
Hope you enjoyed the read and I hope you may have learned something from this adventure!
