Five people stayed on a rock off the Cornish coast as the tide closed in around them.
A coastguard helicopter had to winch all five off.
Chapel Rock sits just off the shore at Marazion, near enough to walk to and far enough that the sea takes the route back.
It is a popular spot with visitors.
Then the water comes round it, the way back disappears, and anyone still standing on it has a problem, as reported by Creatorzine.
On Sunday afternoon, five people were still standing on it.
The call came at 4.33pm
Penzance Coastguard Rescue Team took a report of people cut off at 4.33pm.
The team reached the scene quickly and could see all five on the rock, with a lifeguard alongside them.
Conditions worsened. Penlee lifeboat Ivan Ellen and coastguard helicopter Rescue 924 both arrived, and the lifeboat crew launched its Y-boat.
From above, the helicopter crew took one look at the sea and decided a winch was the safer option.
A Penlee Lifeboat spokesperson said the Ivan Ellen “was re-tasked while en route” after a report of “another five persons cut off by the tide at Chapel Rock”, and that the helicopter “became the safest option of extraction”.
A play park cleared for a landing
Coastguards set up a landing site on Folly Field, emptying the play park and the seafront to make room.
Rescue 924 lifted all five, landed on the field and handed them to the waiting team, who gave them safety advice.
The Coastguard team thanked Penlee lifeboat, Rescue 924, the Marazion lifeguards, and the members of the public who cleared a bank holiday seafront fast enough for a helicopter to put down on it.
‘Completely reckless and avoidable’
Not everyone watching felt charitable.
One witness said: “Idiots decided to stay on Chapel Rock, Marazion, despite the tide coming in, putting their own lives and the lives of the rescue teams at risk.
“The RNLI and Cornwall Coastguard were then forced to rescue all five people from the rock, wasting valuable emergency resources.
“Completely reckless and avoidable.”
The official statements stuck to timings and thank-yous.
Why It Matters
A rescue like this one pulls a lifeboat crew, an aircrew and a shore team out of position for something a tide table would have solved for free.
The people on the rock were never in the water.
They were just in the wrong place for long enough that getting them out stopped being simple.
Cornwall fills up on a bank holiday weekend, and the lifeboat crews covering it are volunteers who leave whatever they were doing to launch.
Chapel Rock will be surrounded again this evening, and again tomorrow.
The only variable is who is standing on it.
READ MORE: I almost binned the dusty bundle behind my bookshelf – it was a 1955 letter addressed to the FINDER
