Paddleboarders rescued

[LadyEloise]

A good news story at last.
Brilliant rescue by fisherman Patrick Oliver and his son Morgan.
I am so happy for the families of the rescued girls.
It was heartening to see so many willing to get involved in the search.
There are far more good people than bad in the world.

The rescue was indeed brilliant - hats off to Patrick and Morgan (and talk about detailed local knowledge - being able to think "with these currents, and this wind, it'll be worth looking... here").

I'm amazed the girls coped with the cold water for that long (they didn't have wet suits on). It sounds like they did a very good job of not panicking.

The story makes me blood run cold, to be honest - without wetsuits that's a long time to be in the Atlantic, and they were helped only by the fact that the water was unusually warm.

But I did crack a smile at one of their mothers saying grimly that paddleboards would 'never darken their doors' again.

(I'd say "relatively warm" - I've been swimming in the sea quite a lot recently - western approaches rather than full-on Atlantic, and it's bloody cold as soon as you get out of the sandy shallows. Just costume is alright for a relatively short time, but when I went paddleboarding recently, I did wear a wetsuit, and even then my hands were aching with the cold when I went swimming in it.)

I used to swim off Salthill year round back a long time ago when I lived there. It was -- bracing...

They were extremely lucky. Well done to that fisherman and his son for finding the girls. This story could have had a very different ending!

In fairness, the girls were very resilient too-stayed calm, tied the boards together, exchanged paddleboard lines to be sure they wouldn’t be separated, took it in turns to have a nap...I think they sound pretty amazing -especially given that one of them was only 17yrs old.