He set off on a jet ski from the Dunedin club after an Otago Peninsula fisherman said he suspected a moored boat had taken on water in Broad Bay.
That turned out to be a false alarm, but on his way back across the shallow centre of the harbour the watercraft came off the plane and lodged itself on a sand bank.
"It was just me trying to take a shortcut," Mr Gibbs explained yesterday, following about two hours stranded on his own island across from St Leonards, while waiting for the incoming tide to float him off.
PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERY