It was just before dawn while steaming southeast, about 20 km out in 60 fathoms of water on the FV Kunara when he noticed a flashing light in the distance.

Just behind him was fellow Bermagui commercial bottom long-line fisherman Matt Creek and together they went to check it out.

Upon closer inspection, the light was on top of a large, electronic equipped buoy that was encrusted with marine growth.

Too large to winch up on deck, Jamie decided to tow the 0.9-metre sphere back to Bermagui while Matt continued out on his fishing trip.

It turned out to be a directional waverider buoy that at some point broke its mooring.

The NSW Government’s Manly Hydraulics Laboratory operates a series of these waverider buoys off the NSW coast.

The buoys measure the heights of waves at sea and transmit the data back to oceanographers.

It turns out the buoy that Jamie found does indeed belong to Manly Hydraulics Laboratory and he has contacted them to return it and also possibly claim a reward and some compensation for the loss of a day’s fishing.