Tired searchers who have found two bodies in the Far North are pressing on with their hunt for a missing fisherman despite hopes fading that he will be found alive.
One of the dead was 58-year-old Buck Maihi, of Waima, who died while fishing near the Cavalli Is.
The other was a
70-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease who went missing on a walk near her home at Whatuwhiwhi.
Mr Maihi and a young relative, Tehere Kingi, left Te Ngaere, between Whangaroa Harbour and the Bay of Islands, about 8am on Monday to go fishing in a 4m outboard-powered dinghy.
Police said they had no lifejackets, flares or radio.
They were reported overdue on Monday night and Mr Maihi's body and the overturned boat were found east of Motukawaiti, the southernmost island in the Cavallis group, on Tuesday afternoon.
Eight members of the Whangarei police and 16 Far North Search and Rescue volunteers pulled out of the hunt for 20-year-old Mr Kingi on Tuesday evening and at 8.30pm moved north from Te Ngaere to Whatuwhiwhi, on the Karikari peninsula.
They joined about 25 people from the Mangonui and Karikari fire brigades and local volunteers in a search for the woman, reported missing about 5.30pm on Tuesday after she failed to return from one of her regular daily walks.
Whangarei police search and rescue leader Sergeant Cliff Metcalfe said the search started about 10pm. A hunt through gorse and bracken-covered hills behind the coastal settlement failed to find the woman and the search was called off at 3am yesterday.
The hunt resumed at 7.30am and the woman's body was found at 8.30am on rocks by the water's edge near the northern end of Tokerau Beach.
Mr Metcalfe said police would investigate the cause of death of the woman, who had lived at Whatuwhiwhi with her husband for about 40 years. It is believed she may have climbed on to a large rock, slipped and fallen.
The Whangarei police and Far North search and rescue teams then returned to Te Ngaere where, after a quick lunch and briefing, they set out in kayaks from the beach there and from Matauri Bay in a coastline hunt for Mr Kingi.
A Coastguard boat was also to take a party out to the Cavalli Is to search on foot. Coastguard aircraft made three search flights over the Cavallis yesterday, stopping only when light faded.
Mr Metcalfe - who had had only two hours' sleep since he was called in to lead the search for the fishermen at 1am on Tuesday - believed searchers were now looking for a body.
"With the number of people we have had searching, I feel that if he was still alive we would have found him by now," he said.
The missing young man's father, Sonny Kingi, of Te Ngaere, also feared his son had drowned.
Some of his other 10 children were out on the water looking for their brother but, although Tehere and Mr Maihi had both been good swimmers, the older man - who Tehere regarded as an uncle and Sonny as "my bro" - had not made it to land.
Searchers find two bodies, press on
Tired searchers who have found two bodies in the Far North are pressing on with their hunt for a missing fisherman despite hopes fading that he will be found alive.
One of the dead was 58-year-old Buck Maihi, of Waima, who died while fishing near the Cavalli Is.
The other was a
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