Parents describe 'nightmare' as son is swept to his death

Morag and David McIntyre said they were devastated after their son Craig, who had spent much of his short life travelling the world, was swept out to sea and drowned while sunbathing on a secluded Irish beach.

The couple rushed to County Cork as the coastguard and Garda searched for their son around the village of Baltimore. But as the search continues today, they say they have had to

accept that Craig, a former pupil at George Watson's, will not return to the family home in Colinton. Mrs McIntyre, 49, who works for Barnado's, said: " He woke up, saw the beautiful sunrise, went down with a friend to take some lovely pictures – it's just what you or I would have done. They're sitting there in the sunshine having a laugh and it's just one of those things. It's just a nightmare."

Her husband, a 49-year-old finance director, said: "One of his friends had a family holiday house quite close to Baltimore. They'd gone over to Belfast – it's ironic, I was worried about them driving all that way from Belfast to Cork.

"They'd got there on Friday night and Craig and one other boy, Ben, got up early on Saturday morning. It was a wonderful morning, beautiful sunrise, and Craig's a keen photographer, and that was what had tempted them to go down to the shore to take some photographs.

"They climbed on to the rocks to take some photographs. It was so nice they stuck around sunbathing and an extremely large wave came and knocked them into the water. Ben managed to scramble back on to the rocks and escape, and Craig didn't make it."

Ben raised the alarm and a search was immediately launched. Mr McIntyre said: "The Irish coastguard and police have been magnificent. They responded really quickly, but it's the Atlantic Ocean and it's incredibly cold, and the waves are huge.

"In my head I knew before we got there that there was no hope, but obviously your heart's hoping illogically that there's some hope for him."

Craig, who studied at Edinburgh University, was spending a year in Heidelberg as part of his honours degree in English and German. Mr McIntyre said his son had always had a passion for languages and travel.

He said: "When he was 18 he was in China, he's been to Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, he's lived in Germany and he's been all over Europe and the States. It's so ironic, he's been to all these exotic places and he's always been adventurous, and this has happened doing something which should have been quite safe.

"It's tough. Everybody who's met him knows him as such a nice, outgoing, friendly lad.

"He's got friends all over the world and he's just such a talented lad – to lose him just seems so unfair.

"I think we'll realise now just how many people he's touched. They're having big gatherings in Heidelberg and in Edinburgh and we're getting phone calls from all over the place. He's packed a hell of a lot into his 20 years but it's small consolation."

The family, who hope to have a memorial service for their son in Edinburgh, spent some of their time in Ireland meeting the Heidelberg students he had been travelling with.

Mr McIntyre said: "It was nice. They just recounted what they were doing in the last few days and it just gives us some other memories to cling on to."