A man and woman in their early 20s are safe and sound after being stranded on an islet in West Vancouver during the long weekend.
West Vancouver’s Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue (RCMSAR) group were tasked around 9 p.m. Friday, May 17 to help two people who had become stuck on Whyte Islet, near Whytecliff Park in West Van, due to rising tides.
The young man and woman are arts students and had been out on a photo shoot on Whyte Islet earlier that day, bringing camera gear and props, said Shane Austin, media liaison for the local RCMSAR station. They had misinterpreted the tide chart and noticed the land connection to Whytecliff Park had become submerged as they were snapping photos.
As the pair realized their situation, they Googled what to do. They found a rescue article from North Shore News and then Googled to find the number for the Coast Guard, Austin said.
“In this case, they did exactly the right thing,” Austin said.
"It's an [islet] that at [low] tide, you can walk out to," he added.“So a lot of people go to Whyte Park and they walk out on the island and they get distracted or they are completely unaware that the ocean goes up and down, and they come back after being there for an hour or two and they realize, ‘Oh I’m now on an island and I can’t swim back there.’”
A rescue crew arrived on scene within 20 minutes after receiving the call, where they spotted the duo at the Northwest corner of the islet. But getting to the two students was no easy task, Austin said.
“We spotted them, but unfortunately the spot they were in was not a spot that we could take the boat,” Austin said. “There’s lots of rocks and these kind of things, and it needs to be a safe place for them to get into the boat.”
Volunteer rescue crews told the two to stay where they were so they could move the boat around to the other side of the islet. Once they took the boat to the other side, Austin and another rescue member climbed up onto the islet and located the pair.
The two were cold but were not showing any signs of hypothermia, he said.
Rescue crews helped the two get back to the boat as the conditions were rainy, windy and slippery, and they carrying a bunch of camera gear. The group made it to the boat and climbed in, where the man and woman were given a blanket to stay warm and dry as they headed to the Horseshoe Bay Pier.
“I think at first, they were nervous and embarrassed. We try to put people at ease that they should never be scared or embarrassed to call us, [even] if it seems like a silly reason,” Austin said. “If they tried to swim, or they’d stayed out there in the cold for hours, that could have very easily become a bad situation.”
Austin said particularly with Whyte Islet, the situation can change quickly. At low tides, people can walk out to the islet by walking across a narrow ridge of rocks, but at high tide the peninsula is underwater.
“You will be stuck out there until the tide goes back down, and that can be many hours, the tides are not a fixed thing,” he said.
Austin said people can also press *16 or #727 if they are in any situation on the water, or dial 911 if it’s an emergency.
Abby Luciano is the Indigenous and civic affairs reporter for the North Shore News. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
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