Cold, wet, and exhausted, Shanaye Hunter and Jack Teerman were pulled to safety after a large-scale rescue operation about 3am on Wednesday. They had arrived at the picturesque spot at Catherine Hill Bay early Tuesday afternoon.

"We were standing on the tip of the lookout, looking down onto the cave," Ms Hunter, 21, said. "It was a low enough tide that you could see all of the rocks, and there was one that was still connected, but was out closer to the water. I went and stood on that rock to take a nice photo of the scenery, and when I stepped onto it a freak wave came and knocked me off into the water.

"I started panicking. Then my partner started panicking, because I was getting tumbled around in the water. I was going up and down and I was getting dragged under. There was a strong current, and big waves were crashing into me from both sides.

"He panicked, and without thinking, he just jumped in to try to pull me out. But if he hadn't done that, I don't think I would have made it back up to the cave at all. I was drowning."

The couple scrambled to the cave to "take a breath" after struggling to get out of the water for about 20 minutes.

"The waves were so choppy, it just didn't get calm enough for us to swim back out," Ms Hunter said.

"We were safe in the cave while it was low tide. But when the high tide came, there were some really big waves smashing into the cave. Because it's rounded, the waves would come in, smash along the side, wrap around the curve and hit us from the side, and that was what was pushing us back into the water."

Their clothes were ripped.

They were wet, and "freezing". They were covered in cuts and bruises. And the waves were relentless.

Ms Hunter, who has a young son, started to think the worst.

"It was going through my head that I was never going to see him again. We were done. It was very scary."

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Had it not been for her friend, Ashley Clay, raising the alert, Ms Hunter thinks their story may not have had such a happy ending.

When Ms Hunter had unusually not responded to several messages and calls - having lost her phone in the water - Ms Clay used Snapchat to find her friend's location, which was still where it had been hours earlier.

They were grateful their rescuers could hear their screams for help over the sound of the crashing waves once they spotted the light of a torch shining near the water.

Police located them at 11.30pm on Tuesday. Fire and Rescue crews from Lambton, Belmont and Swansea found a rocky path onto the cliff above the trapped couple and worked through the dark and cold. A fire fighter rappelled down a 20 metre drop over crashing waves and rocks to access the cave. Ms Hunter and Mr Teerman were pulled up, one at a time, at 3am.

"I got lifted up first, but I was still really scared until my partner got pulled up as well," Ms Hunter said. "And when he did, it was an instant moment of relief."

They were "so grateful" for the efforts of the rescue team, and warned others not to be "silly" and stay well clear of any edges at the "beautiful" spot.

"The waves are just too unpredictable. It's just not worth it," she said. "When you're exhausted and the current is so strong, you run out of energy pretty quickly, no matter how fit you are."

Ms Hunter also wanted to thank the neighbours who had "opened their doors" to members of the search party.

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