Christopher James, 49, from Merthyr Tydfil, was diving in a group from Valley Divers at the Garland Stone near Skomer Island last Friday, 28 May.
He became separated from the cover boat after he’d surfaced with his buddy, and disappeared from view.
The boat put out an emergency VHF call to Milford Haven Coastguard at 1pm and a large-scale search began.
An RAF SAR helicopter and no fewer than four RNLI lifeboats were launched. These were the St Davids and Angle all-weather boats and the St Davids and Littlehaven inshore boats.
Extra Coastguard shore watches were set up and search teams mobilised. A number of private vessels also joined the search.
The diver, who had deployed his orange SMB, was spotted first by the vessel Galway Fisher and, almost simultaneously, the Isle of Inishmore.
He was plucked from the sea shortly afterward by the RAF helicopter and landed at Withybush Airfield, none the worse for wear.
Bob Peel, Watch Manager of Milford Haven Coastguard, thanked “all the private vessels that responded to the mayday relay broadcast”.
Without the large-scale search the diver might well have been whisked much farther away, either along the coast or out to sea.
“This incident highlights how far a person can be carried by tidal currents in a very short space of time,” said Peel.
*A diver was airlifted for recompression at Poole on the South Coast yesterday, 31 May.
He had been in a group diving on the WW1 liner Kyarra off Swanage, in Dorset.
The diver showed signs of possible decompression illness after boarding the dive boat, Predator II.
An emergency call was put out and the diver was airlifted to Poole by the Portland Coastguard SAR helicopter.
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