“The guy has already sent me a photo of the envelope. He’s sending it back,” he said.
“Pretty old school hospitality.”
They were a keen fishing family and it had been their first overnight trip chasing southern bluefin tuna in the Hokitika Trench, Butterfield said.
The phone went overboard in the middle of the night as his son tried to grab a floating fish dropped by a trawler to use for bait.
His son had yet to hear the good news, as of Friday afternoon, as he was commercial diving in the Wairarapa and had not been reached yet on his new phone.
“I don’t know if he’s got new ID yet. I was actually, ironically, just sorting out his bank card this morning for him,” Butterfield said.
Butterfield was looking forward to touching base with the fishermen when they returned to the West Coast.
“We’ll go and have a beer next time we’re over there,” he said.
He had not lost hope the phone might yet be resurrected, saying it was a new waterproof device and they would not give up until they had tried to get it working again.
– RNZ
