lynw
Hanging on how a journalist, politician or anyone else has phrased something is really making something quite often out of nothing.
You do not need to see detail to refer to something in this way - awash simply means just level or just above the surface level of the water which is pretty obvious that object was. Use of that word does not carry the inference you have associated with it regarding the detail needed.
The comments were not from a journalist, they were by AMSA.
There is no way from the grainy images we plebs were provided that you can say something is "awash" with water. This is a term used for something that is bouyant, but not completely floating on the surface. It's a very descript term that implies they have higher res. images than what we were shown, likely also in colour...