Glenn Anderson

I remember I grabbed a wooden oar and kind of tucked that under Ruby's arms to help her float while I was still holding her.

And then I also grabbed a dive flipper that was floating nearby.

So they've kind of drifted towards where there were more breaking waves and we were trying to swim towards them, but the boat was drifting further downwind from us.

They were drifting faster than we could swim.

All of a sudden I heard a noise, a noise of a wave breaking just off to our port side.

And I looked and probably 50 metres away there was a wave which I would say would have been about 15 feet high.

Ruby was almost asleep at the time, so she had no idea what had happened.

She hadn't seen or heard the wave.

Next thing she knew, she was waking up in the ocean.

Ruby and I were separated from the rest of the crew without a beacon, without any way of anyone knowing exactly where we were.

The option was to either stay at Rottnest on the protected side of the island, or push on and try and get to the next kind of waypoint, which was just north of Durian Bay.

The decision was for the crew that we would leave and take on the weather, rather than waiting a few days and waiting.

you know, kind of running out of time or having less time to spend elsewhere because we'd waited.

I guess I have what you'd probably describe as an adventurous spirit, someone that really wants to live their life and take risks and have adventures.

And, you know, sometimes those risks pay off and sometimes they don't.

I kind of fell into a bit of a social pattern, let's say, and my university studies weren't exactly going well because I was kind of out partying and enjoying being 18 and 19.

And probably when I reflect back, I probably wasn't ready for more study at that time.

It was taking a toll on me psychologically because it was a very negative atmosphere in the job.

You can imagine you're dealing with a lot of people in difficult situations and at low points in their life, and it's often a very thankless job.

I saw more so in other older officers that had been around and that were jaded and angry and sick of the job, and I was like, I do not want to.