POLICE are making inquiries today after a body was found at the QEII Marina this morning. No details were released first thing but witnesses reported a clothed man lying face down in the water. A pair of shoes was seen on the wall opposite the Marina Court development.

At about 5.10, drivers Tony Simon, 49, and Steve Corbin, 43, were at the end of the marina checking that there was enough water over the sill to get the former’s open fishing boat, Warrior 165, into the marina.

‘We saw half-a-dozen police officers over the wall and one was crawling down the wall. We saw a body in the water – half in the water, half out. His head was in the water,’ said Mr Simon.

‘Whenever you see something like that, it’s always a shock and a bit of a sickener. It’s a sad, sad, sickening sight to the start of the day.

‘It’s obviously somebody’s sad end and we both feel sorry for the family. Somebody from the White Rock Cafe reckons they saw a pair of shoes on the wall.’

Mr Corbin said: ‘Your reaction is, who is it? I think basically what has happened is that he has probably fallen off the wall and has slid down the side of the wall. I don’t think it was anything suspicious. The water was about one metre above the sill. His head to waist was in the water and his legs were facing upwards.’

Both men said police quickly cordoned off the marina from the Salerie car park slipway as far as the roundabout entrance to the North Beach slip road.

Both believed the man had drowned.

Mark Ogier, 32, who works for the Guernsey Press IT pre-press department, was driving north to work along Glategny Esplanade at 5.40 when he saw three police cars with their lights flashing on the opposite side of the road to the former Savoy Hotel site.

‘One policeman was looking over the wall looking a bit anxious.

‘A police van pulled across the road to join the other cars,’ he said.

He went to Salerie car park and looked across the marina.

‘I noticed there were some brown suede shoes still on the wall. There was what looked like a man face down in the marina about a foot above the tide mark. He looked as if he had possibly been there a while.

‘A policeman slid down. There did not appear to be any signs of life and there were no attempts made to resuscitate.

The man seemed to be in his late 20s or 30s.’

Mr Ogier said that he was very shocked.

‘I thought originally it might be a drugs bust on a boat from the amount of police at the marina, but then noticed the body. I thought, I have seen enough – an ambulance turned up and I left.’

At 7.30am a harbour control boat and a dorey were near to where the body was discovered.

Nobody from the harbour office was available for comment at 8.30am.