Crew rescues man who says he was ‘safe’

LANAI CITY - A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crew pulled a spearfisherman out of the ocean Monday morning off the southwest tip of Lanai, but the 51-year-old man said he didn't need the help.

Bruno Amby of Lanai City was diving with friends from a 15-foot fishing vessel Monday morning when he became separated from them and the boat. The Coast Guard was notified that he was missing at 9:40 a.m. and launched a search using crews aboard an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Air Station Barbers Point on Oahu and a 47-foot motor lifeboat and 25-foot boat from Station Maui in Maalaea.

The air crew spotted Amby swimming along a rocky shoreline area at about 11:35 a.m. about 0.4 mile off the coast of Lanai, according to the Coast Guard. He was hoisted aboard and then flown to Manele Bay on Lanai where he was reported to be in "good condition," officials said.

Reached by telephone at his Lanai City residence Monday afternoon, Amby said he was concentrating on spearfishing and didn't know what had happened to his two friends in the fishing boat.

He said he swam toward the shoreline and had caught a 2- to 3-pound parrotfish when he looked up and saw a helicopter circling him. The crew gave him the thumbs-up sign and he returned it.

"I was wondering, 'What's going on?' " he said. "I was spearing fish."

When the helicopter continued to hover overhead, he understood the crew wanted to talk to him, and eventually, they told him they were going to pick him up in a cage and take him to Manele Harbor, Amby said.

He said he was in a rocky area off the coast of the island where cliffs drop to the water. He estimated he was about 50 feet from the island, and water in the area was about 30 feet deep.

Amby said he was not in trouble and could have made his way to shore.

"I was pretty safe," he said.

Amby said he didn't know his friends had developed engine trouble on the boat and had called 911 emergency dispatchers to report being separated from him.

The crew on a 47-foot Coast Guard motor lifeboat took the divers' Boston whaler in tow to Manele Bay. The vessel had lost power off shore.

Amby works in the Manele resort's Engineering Department. He was born in the Philippines and moved to Lanai when he was 11 years old.