Diver recorded 'final moments' after being left 30 miles from shore

A diver recorded what he believed to be his "final moments" after being stranded 30 miles from the shore in Australia.

Jacob Childs was with a group of divers off the coast of south-east Queensland when he emerged from the water to find he couldn't see where the safety rope was with the boat he rode out on pulling further away.

'Jakey', who was 30 at the time the incident happened in 2016, tried to catch-up - but he couldn't.

He thought "that's a wrap on old Jakey" as it was starting to get dark and he thought a rescue team wasn't coming to get him.

So he decided to record what he thought were his "final moments" on a Go-Pro camera he had with him.

GoPro | Lost at Sea | Part 2GoPro excerpt of me being stranded 30nm from shore. (Part 2) Just un-edited stuff from the GoPro.

Speaking to ABC, Jacob said: "We took a while to anchor up ... which left us [with] several people in different states of readiness. I was one of the first to hop in.

"It was then 15 minutes before the last people hopped in ... in which time we were fighting the current the whole way.

"Then we started to descend down the line. One person was up the top, so I went to swap hands and I missed the rope ... so I surfaced alongside to the boat.

"There was no tagline out the back for me to grab on to ... by the time the skipper had thrown it out I was already past it."

Gopro | Lost at sea | Part 3A bit more of me being lost at sea, filmed on my gopro, part 3. If you have any questions, let me know and I'll try answer them all!

But unbeknown to Jacob, a rescue operation was underway to find him and bring him back to safety.

The officer in charge of the rescuing him said because Jacob had activated his safety equipment, it alerted an air observer.

Around six hours after he was left behind, he was finally spotted floating along in the water around eight miles from where the boat had left him, according to Jacob.

"I was nice and warm in my wetsuit ... I wasn't overly tired as I was floating," he said.

"I just wanted a drink of water and a cup of tea."

He said at the time he'd "probably" return to the water "tomorrow", appearing unfazed by what happened.

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