As parenting situations go, there can’t be anything more terrifying than the one Joanne Appelbee faced on January 30, 2026 when she and her family almost drowned at sea.
On holiday on WA’s south coast, an outing on the hotel’s paddleboards at Geographe Bay quickly became a nightmare as conditions changed. Joanne, her kids Austin, 13, Beau, 12, and Grace, eight, were blown out to sea and in an exclusive interview with Woman’s Day, explains what happened next.
“My plan was a couple of hours in the water, lunch and then drive home to Perth,” says Joanne, 47, from the suburb of Gidgegannup.
“Austin was on one paddleboard, Grace was on one with me, and Beau had a kayak. The first bit was fine but then it turned windy. I was knocked off the board and lost my paddle.”
Linking the boards together they tried to steer to shore using the single paddle and when that failed they tried with the kayak. In the chaos the second paddle was lost.
DRIFTING OUT TO SEA
“I tried the kayak but it was a kids’ one so it was filling with water,” Joanne says. “Then Austin had a go but in the meantime we were drifting out. I didn’t notice how quickly.”
Despite being around 4km offshore, Joanne says she was more embarrassed than frightened at that point. “I told Austin to go and get help and he took off [in the kayak] towards the hotel. I assumed he’d be half an hour.”
Even as Austin started paddling he realised it wasn’t going to be quick.
“I’d go about 100 metres and then the kayak would flip. Each time I was finding it harder to get back on,” he says.
“At one point I got tangled in the ropes from the kayak and I was under it for a few minutes. I couldn’t breathe.”
CLINGING TO THE KAYAK
Struggling free he says the adrenaline really hit. He couldn’t see his mum and siblings and, having been sick, he realised how serious it was.
“I was clinging to that kayak for two or three hours. I thought there was a shark but then I thought stuff it and that’s when I started swimming,” Austin says.
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“I thought I have to get back and then run. I’m not so strong at freestyle so I’d do that for a bit to get the distance and then survival backstroke and breaststroke.”
After realising his life jacket was slowing him down he ditched it to battle through a massive 4km swim.
“I thought I was going to die and I thought Mum, Grace and Beau were dead but I also thought if there was a slight chance, I had to try my best,” Austin says.
And then, unexpectedly, his feet hit the sand. He was still far from shore but, with legs like jelly, he started wading. He’d made it! Now he needed to run through crippling exhaustion to raise the alarm.
Back on the paddleboards Beau woke from a nap to realise Austin was still not back. “Mum said he wouldn’t be long and I kept quiet because I didn’t want to worry Grace,” Beau says. “I was cold and hungry.”
STRONG WINDS AND HIGH WAVES
The three of them tried kicking back to shore but the wind was too strong. Even at rest the waves, up to 10 feet, meant Joanne kept falling in. She lost her glasses and by 4pm her mounting dread crystallised.
“It had been too long and I thought I’d sent Austin to his death,” she says.
By 7pm darkness was falling and the kids were deteriorating. “It was cold and dark and the waves were very high. I thought we’d have hypothermia and all go to sleep,” Joanne says.
But an hour later, a miracle occurred.
“We spotted planes!” Joanne says. “Then a helicopter stayed above us, and a boat came towards us.”
But in their desperation to get attention the kids fell into the water. “A big wave came and swept them away from me.
The boat got me and I was screaming to get my kids,” Joanne says. “Beau was so tired. I thought they were gone but then I heard Grace shout.”
“We were about five metres apart,” Beau says. “I grabbed Grace’s lifejacket. Then the boat came and I pushed her on first.”
As the kids were wrapped in blankets Joanne says she threw up with relief, but it wasn’t until they got to land that she heard Austin was safe too.
“I was in and out of consciousness but they [an ambo] said he’d swum 4km and then run 2km to phone Triple Zero. It was hard to take in,” Joanne says.
Exhausted, sunburnt and dehydrated, Austin was waiting for his family in hospital in Busselton. “It was surreal when a police officer said they’d been saved,” Austin says.
At about 9.30pm, he was told there was someone to see him. “They wheeled mum in, she was bawling,” he says. “Beau was in a wheelchair. He said, ‘What took you so long?’ Grace had been having a lovely time in the ambulance with lollies!”
As the family hugged and cried, the enormity of what had happened hit them.
A HEROIC HOMECOMING
“The doctors were saying, ‘Wow, you’re a hero!’ But I was just happy Mum and Beau and Grace were alive,” Austin says.
Meeting their rescue crew the following day, Joanne discovered they’d drifted around 14km out to sea in 45-metre deep water. “They were amazed we survived,” she says. And referring to how their story went global with Austin’s incredibly calm and collected Triple Zero call being shared, Joanne is still disbelieving.
“I’m still dealing with the fact it’s good to be home and alive!” she jokes.
Austin’s heroic actions haven’t gone unnoticed, with a letter from the WA State Premier, a bravery award from his cadet unit and free tickets to the rugby.
“I’ll be back in the ocean again soon,” he says. “It might take a while to get on a paddleboard or kayak though.”
