Last year, 96 New Zealanders, including seven people in Otago, drowned - most in rivers. The next most common drowning environment was the beach, followed by the sea.
Most people were swimming, some were crossing rivers, others were fishing off the land when they were swept away.
The figure could have been even higher if not for the Dunedin Water Rescue Squad. This year, members of the volunteer squad have been called out seven times so far, rescuing, and most likely saving, the lives of five people in total.
They have not lost anyone, and that is the way they like it. Southerners are fortunate they can call on the combined skills of these water experts.
The squad's 12 members know the hazards of water, and each of them has spent hundreds of hours training for any scenario, be it a search or rescue in swift water, a lake, the ocean or a creek, whether it requires skills in diving, advanced first aid, underwater rescue, heli-winching, aerial observation, a long swim or a ride through the surf.
So, when the water rescue squad is called out it, and you, know you are in the best hands available. Debbie Porteous and Sarah Harvey talked to a few of the old hands about memorable rescues.
Brian Benn
Age: 50
Memorable rescue: Time Out sinking May 2003.
By Debbie Porteous
She insisted he had been paged, he insisted he had not.
It turned out he should have been.
Within 20 minutes the founding member of the Dunedin Water Rescue Squad was at the Taieri Airfield and in the rescue helicopter heading to Moeraki to search for survivors from the sunken fishing vessel, Time Out.
By the time they arrived at Moeraki 20 minutes later, Sgt Benn, now a senior sergeant with the Dunedin police, had slipped into his wetsuit and started searching the water for the fishing boat and its five occupants.
They had not yet seen the three people they were eventually to recover, when the direction-finding equipment on board told them they had flown over the beacon.
A sweep to the right and their heads could just be seen bobbing in the choppy seas.
In most callouts the water rescue squad attends, members are not required to get into the water.
"But as soon as I saw those heads, I knew I was going to get wet that day."
Snr Sgt Benn's harness was checked and within moments he was being winched down on a "wire" to pick out the people.
Dangling underneath a helicopter catching its downdraught is something akin to being "sandblasted" by salt water, he says.
And when you are in the cold sea, treading water in 4m swells during 40 knot winds, you feel like a cork in a washing machine, he says.
But those sorts of rescues are where the hundreds of hours squad members spend training in helicopters and the water, bear fruit.
When he got to the water, he immediately noticed the two men who had been located were still alive, although affected by hypothermia and unable to talk.
He put a tube around the first one, boat owner Ian Anderson, attached the tube to his harness and they were winched out.
"He indicated for me to take the other man [Phillip Edwards], but that fella was a big guy and was wearing a life jacket and this guy was lean and failing so I decided, nup, he was going up first."
Once delivered into the hands of paramedic and winch operator Doug Fleck, he went back down for Mr Edwards, and then for the body of Richard Wallis, which had been spotted by a pilot, finally returning one more time for the locator beacon.
He recalled that the two rescued could not speak well because of hypothermia.
They could only manage to squeeze out "Gone" when asked where their other friends were.
The searchers spent another 10 minutes circling the area before taking the survivors back to a waiting ambulance at Moeraki.
After refuelling, the helicopter returned to the search area and continued to search for two more hours.
The bodies of Keith Wallis and Tainui Kani were never found.
Thousands of hours of training had prepared the rescue team for those 40 minutes, and the operation went smoothly from their perspective.
The rescue stood out in his mind as various delays involved in the operation led to a restructuring of the way New Zealand's rescue service was operated and co-ordinated at a national level.
After setting off a beacon, the men had waited three hours for a rescue helicopter to arrive.
The first man died about 40 minutes after the men entered the sea, the second after about an hour and the third about 30 minutes before the helicopter arrived.
Because of various delays, including the fact the national rescue co-ordination service was being run by one person on a cellphone from home at the time, and that person was dealing with three separate rescues simultaneously, "A whole government department was brought down, and a whole new one created."
Today, Rescue Co-ordination Centre New Zealand runs a 24-hour service with multiple expert employees.
The rescue also highlighted the commitment water rescue squad members make.
Their lives are often organised around where their kit is and they take it with them wherever they go.
Children had been known to be put into the care of neighbours, and members called out of movie theatres.
"It's a big commitment."
Scott McNaughton
Age: 47
Memorable rescue: Recovering a man from an upturned boat being tossed in rough seas off the West Coast.
By Debbie Porteous
Mr McNaughton is the second-longest-serving member of the squad, after Brian Benn.
The rescue of Mr Fisken was one of the many during his time with the squad that stick in his mind.
In February 2005, Mr Fisken and three friends had been fishing off the Haast coast when their boat was flipped by a wave as they attempted to enter the Okuru River mouth from the sea.
Three of the men managed to get out and cling to the outboard motor of the Stabicraft for three hours before being rescued by other fishermen.
But Mr Fisken was trapped under the upturned boat.
By the time Mr McNaughton arrived on the rescue helicopter, the boat had travelled about 10km in choppy seas and Mr Fisken had been trapped inside for five hours.
It seemed on the surface that there was little chance anyone could have survived being flung around for that long trapped inside a flipped boat, which is one of the most dangerous situations people could find themselves in on the water, Mr McNaughton says.
Unable to get close enough to the flailing vessel to drop Mr McNaughton near it, the helicopter landed on the beach and he swam the 100m or so to the boat.
Not knowing if MrFisken was inside or not, unable to see inside and 99% sure they were searching for a body, he managed to attached a wire to the boat and a pair of 4WD trucks on the beach started to drag it in.
It was all but in, when he saw Mr Fisken's feet through the rear of the boat.
"I thought, well, there he goes. And then his feet wiggled. It was absolutely remarkable."
Mr Fisken later told the Otago Daily Times he had no intention of dying and knew he was safe in the pocket of air the upturned boat created.
"I just sat there and rocked . . . I was aware of how serious it was, but the only way to handle it was to keep calm and collected, and to weigh up the options."
Mr McNaughton said the rescue made him rethink people's ability to survive extreme situations.
He no longer assumed the worst, even when the odds were looking bad.
"It made me rethink people's ability to survive what might seem impossible. You can't just assume you are looking for a body."
Scott Weatherall
Age: 30
Memorable rescue: Search for survivors of the Kotuku tragedy (2006).
By Sarah Harvey
The Brighton man has been a member of the water rescue squad since 2001, having been involved with surf life-saving for much of his life, and at a later stage being part of the IRB callout squad - a group of surf life-savers who respond to emergency situations.
He came along to the squad's training for a couple of years before being accepted as a member.
The rescue that sticks in his mind is the one that followed the sinking of the fishing vessel Kotuku off Bluff on May 13, 2006.
Kotuku was travelling from the Breaksea Islands to Bluff, with nine people on board when it hit high waves and capsized.
Mr Weatherall remembered the day well.
He and fellow squad member Scott McNaughton got the call to say there were nine people in the water of Foveaux Strait.
The pair were picked up by the Otago Regional Rescue Helicopter and arrived at Bluff about 5pm.
They flew straight out over the water looking for any signs of human life and searched until about midnight.
Mr Weatherall said the scene was a bit like "chaos" because many of the missing family's friends had gone out to look for them in their own boats.
On top of that, the weather was "horrific".
It was raining and windy and night was falling quickly.
Two survivors and one of the deceased had been found by nightfall.
Mr Weatherall said it was highly emotional knowing three children and their mother were among the missing.
About 2am, the pair were told they would return to Invercargill for the night and then home in the morning.
They had come only in their wetsuits and with their rescue gear, so had to borrow clothes to sleep in.
However, at 6.30am they were told they would be required to help search for a second day.
During searching that day they found a man's body on the shore of Womens Island and flew the body back to Bluff.
One of the things MrWeatherall remembered most from the search was the amount of debris in the water.
There were muttonbirds, clothing and equipment scattered for miles, he said.
The pair were released from the search that night, having spent hours with their eyes trained on the water of Foveaux Strait.
Mr Weatherall said he returned home knowing there were still four people missing and the boat had not been found.
The rescue was tough for a number of reasons.
Besides the physical challenges there were also emotional challenges and having to deal with constant inquiries from the media.
They also had only a few hours of sleep.
"It was pretty intense," he said.
Mr Weatherall said the only sense of satisfaction when looking for bodies was knowing there was a family that would get some sort of closure.
Of the nine people on board, four drowned inside the vessel after it capsized.
Pathology reports said another person succumbed to cold water while attempting to swim to shore and another died of hypothermia after reaching the shore.
Only three survived after swimming to nearby Womens Island.
Mark Whelan
Age: 55
Memorable rescue: The one in which he broke his foot.
By Sarah Harvey
The water rescue squad stalwart is known as a modest man who has achieved more than modest feats during his time with the squad.
Mr Whelan (55), a mechanic, was one of the original members of the squad.
He has had a long association with the Brighton and St Clair surf life-saving clubs and has a natural affinity with the sea.
"It is exciting and you keep reasonably fit. It is a huge sense of achievement to come home knowing you have saved someone's life," he said of the squad.
The rescue in which he broke his foot was unusual for more than a couple of reasons.
The helicopter pilot also broke a bone in his hand when he was cleaning the machine, so both rescuers were in hospital that night.
It happened about six years ago, he said.
He got the call and the Otago Regional Rescue Helicopter, as it is now known, picked him up from his farm south of Brighton.
The rescue squad learned that a 7m recreational fishing boat had overturned off the Catlins, tipping out two fishermen on the way.
When they arrived they saw that an elderly man had been swept from the boat and was in difficulty, while the other man was clinging to the boat to stay afloat.
The rescuers decided the man away from the boat would need to be picked up first.
Mr Whelan was winched down and plucked the man out of the water.
He was severely hypothermic.
By that stage, the boat was in the breakers and the second man, who it turned out was tied to the craft, was being flipped around with it in a 4m swell.
The rescue squad realised it would be too dangerous to try to winch the man out, so it was decided Mr Whelan would have to go into the water and swim him to safety.
Unfortunately, when he jumped from the helicopter the water was too shallow and he hit a sand bar, breaking his foot.
Mr Whelan said there was initial pain but he was concentrating so much on the job he did not notice.
He swam to the boat, managed to cut the fisherman free and then assisted him to shore.
"It was cold so the pain was numbed and the adrenalin was rushing. I was just paying attention to what I had to do."
The helicopter picked the pair up and the man was taken to a waiting ambulance.
The older man was flown to Balclutha Hospital.
As the helicopter was heading away to drop Mr Whelan off, the rescuers got a call to a boat in distress off the coast at St Clair.
Mr Whelan said by that stage he was starting to feel the pain in his foot.
Luckily, the boaties were not in trouble and he could return home.
