Wildlife photographer's horrifying last moments while wearing horse mask and circling whirlpool
One adrenaline junkie dare-devil met a horrifying ending when he dived under a whirlpool for one final shot of the phenomenon never to return to the surface
An extraordinary wildlife photographer, set to be one of the greats, suffered a horrifying death while wearing a horse mask circling a deadly whirlpool.
Jacob Cockle's horrifying final moments were chillingly partially predicted by his deceased and beloved sister.
"Jacob loved the water," his mother, Carolyn said: "Once he was in you could never get him out." Jacob was the life and soul of the party, and “made you believe magic existed,” added his friend Barnaby Courtney.
"He had these crazy eyes that looked like the sea, his hair was always unkempt, he always looked happy," Barnaby told the BBC.
Jacob was said to have an unusual relationship with his "eerie" old-soul sister, Grace, before her untimely death. Tragically, her passing made him wilder than ever.
Jacob’s form tutor at Cape Cornwall Comprehensive said "what happened to her, well, it was heartbreaking. What more does that poor family have to go through?"
The pair developed a secret language when they were young and Grace would communicate on his behalf. Grace’s best friend Dabriella Quayle said: "She was the sort of girl your parents talked about, 'why can't you be more like Grace'?
"She was older than her years, she had the sense of someone in their 30s or 40s."
Dabriella’s twin sister added: "Looking back now it was eerie." Jacob would skip lessons to surf whilst Grace was a star pupil. However, Grace was tragically diagnosed with a brain tumour in September of 2001 and died at just 20 December 2002.
Grace requested her ashes to be kept until another family member died. Dabriella said: "I thought it was a very strange request for her.”
Eleven years later her ashes were due to be scattered after her grandmother died - then the day before this planned ceremony - Jacob passed away.
His sister’s death pushed him to "throw everything to the wind and give it a try," his girlfriend Rachel said. "He thought, as a young beautiful woman she did not do anything in life to deserve that, there was no karma to it, it was just cruel.” At 17, he pledged to become a world-famous photographer.
His methods were extreme, he learned to hold his breath so he could explore the depths of the ocean. He would surf over rocks and jump off bridges. He received a police caution after leaping from a railway bridge in Hayle.
By his early 20s, he had won awards from National Geographic and The Sunday Times. Weeks before his death, he won a £28,000 expedition to Antarctica, the adventure of a lifetime.
Jacob's shot of his friend Seb surfing near a supertanker in Sumatra was the winning image in a travel photography contest run by The Guardian. Judges said the picture would "stand the test of time".
His final project was to photograph Hayle harbour whirlpool - not far from his home. On 28 May 2013 the whirlpool returned. Artist David Raine, a collaborator of Jacob’s, saw him running towards his house telling him the whirlpool was back.
He would ignore the signs and swim out to the natural phenomenon - also wearing a horse mask he circled it in a bid to garner more YouTube views.
When David got to the beach - Jacob was in the water David filmed from the quay as Jacob swirled around the whirlpool's edge. "It looks a powerful one," David called to Jacob. "Ah yeah, earlier on it was really scary," Jacob replied. He added: "It's fine now because it's so deep but when I first got in I was a bit scared to be honest. It's safe as now, though."
The whirlpool began to drag him down and he shouted “woah woah that was pretty scary." He asked David to pass him a GoPro camera so he could get a final shot below the surface.
However Jacob never resurfaced. David ran across to the other end of the of the whirlpool where it flowed into a pool. David ran back and forth and finally found Jacob facedown in the pool - dead.
A year after Jacob's death, the sluicing system in Hayle harbour was changed and the whirlpool vanished forever.
"I do not think he was scared of death," said Rachel. "If he was going to go any way it was going to be in some extreme blaze of glory like that. Like he was vortexed into the next realm."