In Egypt, a diving boat with 26 passengers on board sank. Among them was a British tourist who said he knew something was wrong with the ship when he saw fish swimming outside his cabin window and was able to survive. The Telegraph spoke about his impressions and the terrible moments that the traveler experienced during the incident.
Architect David Taylor, 53, was with his 21-year-old son on the three-story dive tour boat Carlton Queen, which quickly sank off the coast of Hurghada on April 24. The traveler told the publication that he was sleeping in his cabin when he was suddenly thrown from the bunk bed. It was the first, but for the sleepy tourist, the moment about the impending disaster was not yet obvious. The second signal was a fish swimming peacefully past the window of his cabin. At the same time, the traveler did not hear panic and screams on the ship: the boat almost silently went to the bottom. “I knew something was wrong when I saw a fish swimming outside my cabin window,” he said. – It was terrible. When we realized that we had rolled over, we felt that we were in trouble.
In desperation, he tried to get on deck and save his son, but the stairs that the tourist found did not lead up. “I felt like I couldn't protect my son and I started to panic,” Taylor added. Experienced diver Fernando Suarez Meilha came to the rescue, heading to his cabin for a camera when the yacht began to take on water. Along the way, he accidentally met a father and son in a state of panic and helped them out, and then returned to check all the cabins. There were no vacationers there. “I didn't panic, I was just sure that we needed to get out as soon as possible,” Meilha recalled.
The escape hatch that was supposed to bring the man upstairs jammed. Then he decided to get out by diving into the flooded part of the boat. “I jumped back into the flooded part of the boat and swam 15 meters below the surface of the water, thus managing to escape,” he added.
Fortunately, all 26 guests and nine crew members of the yacht survived. It is still unclear why the ship, which was only repaired last year, capsized on a calm day and sank. The tourists are now planning to sue the boat owners and the travel company. There were also several reports in the foreign media that the owners of the yacht “threatened, lied to and pressured the vacationers into giving false statements to the police.”
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