The tragic deaths of fishermen Alan Edness and Micah Battersbee in the New Nuts tragedy should be a timely reminder that the waters around the Island can be extremely dangerous and unpredictable.

The whole community will join his family in giving thanks that Robert (Bobby) Lambe was saved after an extraordinary ordeal.

It is unlikely that any kind of rescue operation in this case would have saved Mr. Edness or Mr. Battersbee as they were apparently trapped in the hull of the vessel when it capsized and did not respond to Mr. Lambe's desperate attempts to make contact with them.

The fact that Mr. Lambe survived, having treaded water through the night is a miracle. It is also fortuitous that a US Navy hospital ship happened to be in the area to pick him up and give him first class medical care.

What will never be known is if Mr. Lambe could have survived if he had had to wait for the tugboat Powerful, which was not expected to get into the area until some six hours after he was spotted and a life raft was dropped for him.

That does not take away from the courage or efforts of the Powerful crew, but it should be a matter of grave concern that this was the best vessel Bermuda could send out in Wednesday's weather conditions.

When the US Navy had its bases here, it could well have been possible to get a helicopter to the area in a matter of minutes, not hours, and to pluck Mr. Lambe from the sea and bring him back to shore.

Bermuda no longer has that luxury, and has decided that the costs of having a rescue helicopter on call for occasional rescues of this kind cannot be justified. It would be too costly.

Governments must make hard decisions of these kinds all the time and it is impossible to put a price on a life, but there's a wide gulf between a full-time helicopter and rescue crew based on the Island and the Powerful as the next best alternative.

Bermuda's settlement of the Baselands transfer would have been the ideal occasion to organise a coordinated air-sea rescue effort, and there was talk about the US providing Bermuda with a vessel at the time, although nothing has been heard since.

It would seem to be in the best interests of the US - and the UK and Canada - to have some kind of Coast Guard station on the Island in conjunction with the Bermuda Government.

This station, which has already been proposed by the National Liberal Party, could provide assistance not only to Bermudians but to anyone who gets into difficulties in this part of the Atlantic, which is among the most dangerous stretches of sea at this time of the year.

In conjunction with the excellent service that Harbour Radio and the Weather Service provide, this could provide support and comfort to those who might otherwise perish because the US Coast Guard bases on the US East Coast are just too far away.