HURGADA, Egypt (13 August 2004) -- Stranded in the middle of the Red Sea off the Egyptian coast with little hope of ever being rescued, Annick Landuyt, adjusted her diving suit's buoyancy device and prayed for her two children, aged three and eight. She was among a group of 12 divers: four Britons, five Portuguese, and two Belgians, in addition to their British guide, who were miraculously rescued from the rough sea on Sunday, some 14 hours after they went missing. "I prayed for my children all the time," Landuyt recalled. Unfazed by their ordeal, the divers decided to continue their holiday and returned to the coastal town of Hurgada Thursday to a hero's welcome. The 12 are due to leave Egypt on Friday. They were part of a group of 22 aboard the Oyster, an Egyptian-owned diving ship that had sailed from the port of Hurgada on a routine four-day expedition towards The Brothers, two Red Sea islands off Quseir, some 500 miles (800 kilometres) south of Cairo. The islands have an abundance of two things of interest to them: beautiful coral reefs and sharks. The party had split into two groups for a one-hour dive but only one group surfaced at the rendezvous point. The alarm was raised when an hour later there was still no sign of Landuyt and her colleagues. While diving towards the islands, they had suddenly seen an array of sharks and decided to approach them for pictures. "We turned round to look at the sharks," said Patrick Vantorre, the other Belgian in the group. But the currents were very strong and before they knew it the 12 were being swept away. "The currents in that area are rough," Ala Eddin Ali, of the Red Sea Association for Diving and Water Activities, pointed out. When the party was located, they had drifted 47 kilometers away from where they were supposed to be diving, explained Riham Galal, whose ship, Thunder Bird, was the first to spot the divers and come to their rescue. | | "Nearly all ships at sea were mobilized for the rescue mission," said Ali. "We did a full sweep of the water," Galal added. The Egyptian navy and military helicopters also helped, providing GP coordinates each time they noticed something moving in the sea. "More than once the helicopters flew quite close to our position, but did not see us," remembered Jorge Correia, a father of two from Portugal. It got "desperate, especially when everything went past," Londoner Alexandra Douglas explained. "The reflection of the sun in the water made it difficult for the helicopters to spot them," said Oyster manager, Amr Sami, who was with the other group. Correia was worried about his wife and children as they began to implement all the survival drills they had learned. They inflated their buoyancy devices so they could stay on the surface, held up their torches and formed a circle to increase their chances of being spotted. "The most important thing was that they should remain together," according to Sami. They also kept talking to each other so that nobody would fall asleep and kept fighting against hypothermia. "We talked about many things and made a lot of jokes," said one member of the group, adding that this helped keep their spirits high as they waited for help. "They were perfectly well; tough people," said Galal. Once they were safely pulled out of the water on to the Thunder Bird, the first thing they asked was whether there was any beer or gin and tonic on board. SOURCE - AFP |
