Five decades ago Doug Brooks lost three of his mates in a tragic boating incident. And while 50 years have passed, he has never forgotten that day.
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The sole survivor, Mr Brooks is haunted by the tragedy each year, on his birthday. He was celebrating his 31st on January 5, 1971, when the boat he was on capsized.
It was rough seas at St Helens that day when he was collecting cray pots with his three workmates - Terrence William "Bill" Buckby, Garry David Cooper and David James Howes.
When the bad weather turned worse, and a wave hit the boat, all four men ended up in the water. They all managed to stay near the boat at first, but could only hang on for so long.
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"It was upside down, and just too slippery, we couldn't hang onto it," Mr Brooks recalled.
"I didn't realise how serious it was for a while ... we floated for about three hours in the water."
Eventually, Mr Brooks decided to swim for it and get help. The men got separated in the rough waves and Mr Brooks called out to make sure his mates were OK, but they told him to keep swimming.
"They were alive when I last saw them," he said.
"The last thing one of them said to me was 'we won't get out of this'."
He swam about two kilometres, but the toughest challenge was getting through the giant sea kelp to make it ashore.
Making it to dry land, he trekked more than six kilometres through the bush barefoot and came across the main highway where he got a lift to the police station before being taken to hospital. It was at the hospital he later learned his friends had not survived.
"When I got picked up at an intersection I said to the fella 'there's three of my mates still out there', and he took me to the hospital ... a couple of hours later they found their bodies in the water," he said.
About 30 volunteers were involved in the search effort that day, including an abalone diver on a towboat who spotted Bill and Garry on the inside of the sand bar. That diver swam through the rough waters to recover the men's bodies.
David's body was later found outside of the bar by another fishing boat.
All four men were wearing life jackets, but Mr Brooks said he chose the one that didn't lace up at the front, thinking he was the strongest swimmer and had the best chance of survival should anything happen. But that was also the only life jacket with a collar, and he believes that collar saved his life.
"It kept my head out of the water, and I was a pretty strong swimmer in those days, I couldn't swim fast, but I was a good swimmer," he said.
Despite treading water for hours and swimming for his life, Mr Brooks did not suffer any serious physical injuries, only shock and exhaustion.
Tuesday marks Mr Brooks' 81st birthday and 50 years since the tragedy at St Helens.
Although he has been able to head back out on the water since, with a handful of trips to the same spot, he said it would never be the same.
"About 12 months later I actually went and bought a boat ... but I was very nervous in the water," he said.
"I don't go out much now, I keep away from the water, I am a bit wary."
Not only does he think about the mates he lost when he is near the water, but every year on his birthday.
"I have never really had a good birthday, and I have never really done anything for it," he said.
"But being 50 years this year I just wanted to do something in the paper to remember them."
Although he felt lucky to be alive, he sometimes felt guilty being the only survivor.
"It really put a dent in my life... you don't realise how short life is. I do wake up at night sometimes and think about it, but what can you do about it, it will never go out of my brain," he said.
Having been diagnosed with kidney failure about three years ago, Mr Brooks now spends his afternoons on dialysis and hasn't planned much for his birthday.
But today in honour of his friends - Bill, Garry, and David - he will find the time to at least have a beer in their memory, he said.
Bill was 44, a welder, and married with four sons. He was from West Launceston. Garry was a 27-year-old truck driver from Punchbowl. The youngest, David, was 19, and an apprentice from Youngtown.
The four men worked together in the machine shop at Launceston's Phoenix Foundry.
A coronial inquest found the men died from "misadventure".
