Freediver Peter Wissick overcomes crippling fear of ocean, now dives to recover items lost off Busselton Jetty

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Peter Wissink struggled with a phobia of the ocean after his father died. Now, he's known around town as the man who saves people's precious items when they are accidentally dropped into the water.

When Peter Wissink dives into the clear blue waters of Western Australia to save a dropped phone, you would never think that less than a year ago he was battling an intense fear of the ocean.

"There was this comfort in the back of my mind … he knows what he's doing, he's older than me, I'm safe," he said.But after moving to a landlocked part of South Australia as a teenager, and tragically losing his father, Mr Wissink developed anxiety.It wasn't until last year, when the now 22-year-old moved to the coastal town of Busselton in WA's South West, that he decided to get back into the water.

Recently, a young woman who'd just run the 1.8 kilometre length of the jetty, jumped into the water to cool off, not realising her car keys had fallen out of her pocket and sunk to the bottom."I normally walk out on the jetty with my wetsuit half down, so all it took was me lifting it up, I was geared up in like a couple of seconds, there was no hassle, and I hopped in," he said.

"The fact that someone who's lived that, can make a change for someone else … that gives me a sense of security in myself and that I'm worth something," Mr Wissink said. "We do find things that are months or even years old in the ocean, there's lots of candy wrappers … washing up on the beach from the 70s and 80s."

 

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