A Polish tourist, Marcin Dawid, aged 44, was found dead at Yeh Kuning Beach in Yeh Kuning Village, Jembrana Regency, Bali, on Wednesday afternoon, 2 September 2026.
He had been missing since Sunday evening, 30 August, after being swept away by strong ocean currents while at Tembles Beach in nearby Penyaringan Village. The discovery of his body brought an end to an intensive three-day joint search and rescue operation that covered land, sea, and air routes.
Local authorities launched a full search after receiving a report early on Monday morning, 31 August, at 5:55 am WITA. Searchers became concerned for Dawid’s safety when his motorcycle and personal belongings were found abandoned along the shore at Tembles Beach.
Dewa Hendri Gunawan, Coordinator of the Jembrana Search and Rescue Post, confirmed that a passerby eventually spotted the body washed ashore around 5:20 pm WITA on Wednesday, roughly 7.5 kilometres west of where the tourist originally disappeared.
“We got a heads-up from the team over at Air Kuning Beach that a body had washed up on the sand,” Dewa mentioned when discussing the discovery.
Emergency teams transported the body using a Jembrana Police Medical and Health Division ambulance to Negara General Hospital for formal identification and further processing. Medical responders noted that the body was already in a state of rigor mortis when recovered from the shoreline.
The Three-Day Search Operation
The search effort was led by a joint team from the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) alongside local emergency personnel and police forces. Operations on the final day commenced at 7:00 am WITA, with teams deploying both maritime vessels and modern surveillance technology to trace the missing tourist.
A four-person Basarnas crew aboard a rubber boat swept the offshore waters westward from Tembles Beach, tracking the direction of the local coastal currents.
To cover as much ground as possible, rescue teams also deployed a thermal drone to survey the coastline from the air.
Despite these coordinated early efforts, searchers found no sign of the victim during the morning sweeps, leading officers to pause operations around 10:00 am WITA before resuming ground patrols along the shoreline later in the afternoon.
“Our team had been out since first light, pushing west from Tembles Beach both on the water and with a thermal drone in the air,” Dewa explained regarding the search strategy. “It was tough going through the morning, but we kept expanding the search perimeter along the coast until the local residents spotted him.”
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