Five sailors who became stranded on a rocky island off the coast of Australia were rescued by helicopter after writing SOS in the sand.
 
The group had reportedly anchored their boat in the Cumberland Channel but it broke free while they were looking for oysters and drifted away.
 
The alarm was raised after the abandoned 6-metre boat was spotted floating in the ocean at around 1.40pm.
 
RACQ CQ Rescue launched a helicopter to search for the stranded crew and after three hours, eventually spotted their message written in a nearby sandbar.
 
The crew were found on a rocky island shortly after.
 
Crewmember Lyn Forbes-Smith told the Courier-Mail: “We just looked for the highest ground, we looked for rocks where five of us could huddle together because we didn’t really want to separate, and we wanted to be out of the wind as best as possible.
 
“We knew the sandbar would go under but we were fairly confident that the tide wouldn’t have taken over the rocks,” she added.
 
All five sailors were hoisted into the helicopter and flown to Mackay where they gave statements to the police.
 
The group’s boat was also towed back to Mackay and all were reported to be in good health.

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Image: CQ Rescue