A German man was finally found and rescued after drifting out to sea on a beach lilo and abandoning it when he couldn't turn it back to the beach.

The young man was located in the early hours of Saturday in good health after disappearing the previous evening just off  Playa Las Palmerillas in Roquetas de Mar around 19.00h.

The search party came across his abandoned lilo first about an hour before finding him. The current and waves had pushed him along to parallel with Playa del Zapillo near the city of Almería.

The 22-year-old man was found conscious and alert near the Aguadulce fish-pens. Although he didn’t appear to need medical assistance, it was decide to take him to the area hospital of Torrecárdenas, where he was kept that night under observation.

There is no lifeguard service on the beach where he got into difficulty but beach users had seen two young lads go out into the water on lilos and that one of them was being carried out to sea despite his efforts to turn round some 400 metres from the shore.

It was his 20-year-old friend, having managed to regain the beach, contacted the Policía Local to say what had happened. He explained in English how they had arrived at the beach in an RV (camper van) and taken the lilos out despite the strong winds. After his friend had disappeared from sight with night closing in he was thinking of how he was going to have to break the news to his friend’s mother.

The man explained in English how he had arrived at the said beach in an RV (camper van) with a friend and his mother.

It was the Guardia Civil Maritime Rescue Service that found him, together with a rescue helicopter from Almería. Unfortunately a Protección Civil launch sent out from the Puerto de Roquetas suffered an engine failure and had to abort the rescue attempt.

(News: Roquetas de Mar, Poniente, Almería, Andalucia)