By Melissa Cunningham & Rachael Dexter
Two men have drowned after getting into trouble in water off the coast of Phillip Island, police said.Credit: Simon O'Dwyer
A Cranbourne East woman watched on helplessly from the beach as her husband and adult son got caught in a rip and drowned yesterday, while her other young son managed to swim ashore.
Emergency services were called to the Colonnades, a 900-metre long south-west facing stretch of beach near Woolamai, following reports of three males in distress while swimming in waters off The Boulevard about 5.30pm on Monday.
Paramedics pulled the 45-year-old father from the water and performed CPR, however he could not be revived and was declared dead at the scene.
His son, a 20-year-old man, was also pulled from the water and died at the scene.
The third male, an 11-year-old boy, was able to swim to shore and was taken to Monash Children’s Hospital where he remains on Tuesday in a stable condition with minor injuries.
Footage from Nine News shows volunteers bringing the men ashore on stretchers.
Senior Sergeant Andy O’Brien of Cowes Police said the tragedy was an "all too common occurrence" at Phillip Island.
"It's an absolute tragedy," he said.
"This poor family will live with this for the rest of their lives. Every Christmas it will be a reminder of what's occurred and that's terrible."
Senior Sergeant O'Brien implored people to swim to their capabilities.
"Check the BeachSafe app, look after yourself and others and do not swim at unpatrolled beaches," he said.
"Swim between the flags if you must swim at these surf beaches, there's plenty of safer beaches which we encourage people to use."
The Colonnades is the western extension of the notorious Woolamai Surf Beach where two men drowned within days of each other last summer.
Woolamai Beach surf lifesaving club had warned swimmers on its Facebook page early on Monday to avoid the beach all together due to perilous conditions.
"The messaging about Woolamai Beach was put out yesterday," Senior Sergeant O'Brien said.
"We need to get people to link up with those alerts."
According to BeachSafe, The Colonnades is an "exposed high energy beach" which is unsuitable for safe swimming due to strong rips in the wide surf zone and against the reefs.
The stretch of beach where the family were swimming is never patrolled, Senior Sergeant O'Brien said.
He said the deaths were not just a tragedy for the family but also for the first responders, and witnesses on the beach.
"It's tragic at anytime, but I think at this time of year it hits home particularly strongly with everyone involved," he said.
Police airwing were deployed to help retrieve the family members, and off-duty lifesavers from the nearby surf club also ran to the aid of the family.
Senior Sergeant O'Brien said he hoped the deaths were the last that Phillip Island, plagued in recent summers by drowning deaths, would see.
Indian national Hemant Govekar, 28, drowned after going for a swim on Christmas Day at nearby Cape Woolamai Beach in Philip Island last year.
He had only just graduated from the University of Queensland when he died.
Mitcham man Paul Baker, 46, drowned on New Year's Day at the same beach despite swimming between flags, prompting authorities to urge people to learn how to identify rips.
A year earlier in January 2016, a man and a woman aged in their 20s also drowned after being swept into the sea by a rip at Cape Woolamai outside lifesaving patrol hours.
Woolamai Beach was closed again on Christmas Day due to dangerous surf conditions, according to Life Saving Victoria.
Police will now prepare a report for the Coroner over the Christmas Eve deaths.
Meanwhile, police airwing rescued three people who were stranded in shallow mud off Venus Bay near Inverloch early Christmas morning.
Two men and a woman set off to kayak through Andersons Inlet in the mid afternoon on Christmas Eve.
The kayakers became stuck in mud for a number of hours, and called 000.
Footage from Polair shows rescuers winching the kayakers to safety at Inverloch around midnight where they were met by police and paramedics.
The man and woman, both 29-year-olds from Bendigo along with their 58-year-old male companion from Erica were all un-injured.