A day at the beach turned into a rescue after a dog drifted about 4.8 kilometres out to sea in an inflatable kayak off Bamburgh, Northumberland.

Bruce, an Alsatian, was playing in the waves when his owner put him in the boat and swam beside him. A gust of wind then dragged the kayak off the shore, and Bruce was washed out to sea.

His owner raised the alarm after trying to swim after the boat and then turning back. Coastguards from nearby Seahouses sent a lifeboat to search for Bruce on Sunday, July 6, in the afternoon.

Bruce was eventually rescued by the two-man crew of Serenity Farne Islands Boat Tours after they heard the alert on their radio while returning from a tour of the Farne Islands.

Captain Jimmy Reid said: “My emotions definitely got the better of me when I finally spotted Bruce in the boat.

“I had a heart-wrenching fear the dog was going to go in the water and stay there.

“When we actually got him on board and knew he was safe and knew the hard bit was over, we were both ecstatic.”

Jimmy said Bruce’s owner “had tried to swim out to catch the kayak but did the right thing by turning round.

“It could easily have been a multi-casualty thing if he had kept going.”

When the crew reached the kayak, they first tried to get a harness around Bruce, but it slipped off and he fell into the water.

Jimmy said: “Luckily my crewman Aaron reached down and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him on board.

“If he hadn’t grabbed him like that it would have been the end of the any sort of rescue effort.”

Bruce was hypothermic, but the crew wrapped him in towels to warm him up before sailing back to shore, where he was reunited with his owner.

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