{"id":548503,"date":"2026-03-18T14:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T14:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/548503\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T14:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T14:19:09","slug":"kayaker-73-who-survived-night-lost-at-sea-north-of-adelaide-says-worst-part-was-too-many-mozzies-south-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/548503\/","title":{"rendered":"Kayaker, 73, who survived night lost at sea north of Adelaide says worst part was \u2018too many mozzies\u2019 | South Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A 73-year-old kayaker who spent the night lost at sea north of Adelaide without his phone says his wife is \u201chappy I\u2019m alive\u201d after he was helicoptered to safety by emergency services.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Goran Radic said he had taken his one-person kayak off Middle Beach, a small coastal suburb about 40km north-west of the Adelaide city centre, \u201cabout a thousand times before\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">But on Tuesday afternoon, Radic, a keen fisherman who grew up in Serbia, said he became disoriented in the open water of St Vincent Gulf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThe moment I didn\u2019t see entrance into the channels I knew something [was] different,\u201d he told local media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">South Australia police said relatives raised the alarm just before 11pm on Tuesday, concerned for Radic\u2019s safety when he hadn\u2019t returned from his kayaking expedition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">SA police\u2019s water operations unit, Polair and volunteer marine rescue crews conducted an extensive water and aerial search overnight with infrared cameras \u2013 but they failed to spot Radic.<\/p>\n<p><a data-name=\"placeholder\" href=\"https:\/\/interactive.guim.co.uk\/uploader\/embed\/2026\/03\/australia_kayaker\/giv-32554Ypl59tKBRH8W\/\" class=\"dcr-1eupayo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a map showing the location of Middle Beach<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The search began again on Wednesday morning and the 73-year-old was spotted at about 8.30am sitting in his kayak, 2km south of Middle Beach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Radic told the media on Wednesday the worst part of his wild night at sea was \u201ctoo many mozzies [mosquitoes]\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cI didn\u2019t panic, I was all right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cI [saw] a rescue helicopter sometime in the night and they missed me so I decided to go to St Kilda [a coastal hamlet about 20km north-west of Adelaide].<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cI \u2026 thought lights would guide me there but I didn\u2019t find it, so I kayaked back and they found me this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a data-link-name=\"standard link button Primary\" data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/email-newsletters?CMP=copyembed&amp;CMP=emailbutton\" class=\"dcr-svb9qg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Radic said the first thing he did once safe was ring his wife before driving home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cShe\u2019s happy I\u2019m alive, all right, and [asked me] what happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThank you so much [to the first responders]. They\u2019re professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A spokesperson for SA police said Radic was winched to safety by the rescue helicopter and determined to be \u201cin good health\u201d by paramedics at the scene.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cPolice wish to thank the public for their assistance in this matter, particularly people familiar with the kayaker who helped guide search efforts,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Radic\u2019s kayak was recovered by rescuers around midday and pulled to shore with the help of police, the ABC reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Radic told media he would be heading out to sea again but would \u201cbe more careful\u201d next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 73-year-old kayaker who spent the night lost at sea north of Adelaide without his phone says his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-548503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}