Car ends up in the ocean off boat ramp at Palm Beach

THIS is the moment a devastated driver looks on as the car he was driving ends up in the water off Palm Beach. It’s the latest in a string of car mishaps on Sydney’s northern beaches.

The distressed owner can only clutch his head as he watches his car descend into the depths of Pittwater. Picture: Chris Reynolds

• Car flies into roof of Manly home
• Car get stuck on Shelly Beach boat ramp

HERE we go again. The curse of out-of-control cars ending up in unusual places on Sydney’s northern beaches has struck again.

This time, a McMahons Point man lost control of his vehicle at a Palm Beach boat ramp.

About 11am this morning the man had unloaded some fishing gear from his car and was about to leave the boat ramp when he saw one of his car doors was still open and he leaned across to close it.

Car ends in the water at Palm Beach. Picture: Chris Reynolds

It was while the man was briefly distracted that his car went down the ramp and into the water.

Photos show the vehicle’s driver visibly distraught as he sits on the ramp while the car goes under water.

Josh Haymen, a foreman at a building site next to the Sandy Point boat ramp, ran to assist the man after the man had managed to get himself out of the car while it was in the water.

“He was just distressed,” Mr Haymen said.

“My thoughts were hoping that somebody else wasn’t in there.”

Nobody else was in the car at the time.

A young female driver was caught by surprise when a Huntsman Spider dropped into her lap while parking her car at Bayview boat rap at Mona Vale recently. Picture: Stuart Cooper

Bystander Chris Reynolds — who believed the car model was a Holden Cruze — said the man was “soaking wet and he was sitting there with his hands on his head.”

A water police launch stood off the boat ramp to make sure no boat owners tried to land at the ramp until after the car had been removed.

Broken Bay Water Police commander Snr Sgt Chris Morgan said one of the officers on the police launch changed into swimwear and tied a rope to the car to prevent it floating away.

Beached as ... a car has to be removed from the beach at Dee Why. Picture: Annika Enderborg.

He said a tow truck driver then used the rope to pull the car out of the water and on to dry land.

In recent months it has become a bit of a theme for cars on the northern beaches to end up in strange places.

A woman believed to be following her GPS had definitely ended up at the wrong location, after getting her car stuck on a northern beaches boat ramp last month.

A car ends up off the boat ramp at Shelly Beach. Pic credit: Tim Ettle

The woman, from Lindfield, managed to get her Volkswagen Beetle stuck on the Shelly Beach Boat Ramp.

It came just 10 days after a sunset viewing went horribly wrong for 25-year-old William He, who drove his friends Mercedes-Benz on to Dee Why Beach.

He was left “frustrated” and “embarrassed” after driving along the beach to drop supplies off before getting the $67,000 GLA 4MATIC Mercedes stuck.

This car crashed into the roof of a home at Lawson Plce at Manly on Tuesday. Photo Matt Harris

Also last month, at a Bayview boat ramp in Rowland Reserve, a runaway huntsman caused a young woman to panic, leap out of her car only to watch it sweep into the ocean.

In a separate incident, a car flew into the roof of a Manly home yesterday.

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