Michael Utley had been swimming with four friends on Saturday when he disappeared in the water after being dumped by a large wave. A backpacker working at the Gairdner grain bins, Mr Utley had been in Australia since December 2009.

Sergeant Bob Scott from the Jerramungup Police station first became aware of the missing swimmer at 4pm on Saturday afternoon after he received a call from Albany that there was someone missing in the water at Native Dog beach.

"It's a pretty rough coastline, the conditions were atrocious where they went in to have a swim and where he was actually swimming there was a lot of foamy water about, visibility was poor because of that that, generally the water is very clear. Unfortunately we are in a position where we are conducting recovery enquiries because there is no chance that he has survived."

Volunteers from a Surf Life Saving Carnival at nearby Blossom Beach joined the search for the missing man and the Police helicopter flew down from Perth to scan the water.

A large shark was sighted in the search area yesterday afternoon.

"There was a shark between two and three metres long, we weren't able to identify the shark as it was quite dark. It was more of a distraction than anything else it hasn't hampered the search. The helicopter did go closer to investigate the shark, it did go down into deeper water. However it was seen further along an area in Dylan Bay which is where our search was concentrated much closer to the shore. Just the fact that it was in the area it was a psychological factor but it really hasn't affected the search."

The search continues today.

Too terrible to imagine the worse case scenario......