A diving boat with 26 passengers on board sank in Egypt. Among them was a British tourist who said he knew something was wrong with the ship when he saw a fish swimming outside his cabin window and was able to survive. The Telegraph talked about his impressions and the scary moments that the traveler experienced during the event.
David Taylor, a 53-year-old architect, was with his 21-year-old son on board the three-decker Carlton Queen, a diving tour vessel, which quickly sank off the coast of Hurghada on April 24. The traveler said he was sleeping in his cabin when he was suddenly thrown from his bunk bed. This was the first, but not yet obvious to the sleepy tourist, moment of impending trouble. The second signal was a fish swimming peacefully past his cabin window. At the same time, the traveler did not hear the panic and shouts on the ship: the boat went to the bottom almost silently. “I realized something was wrong when I saw a fish swimming outside my cabin window,” he said. – It was awful. When we realized that we had fallen over, we felt that we were in trouble.”
In desperation, he tried to get out on the 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 Meilla, who was on his way to his cabin to get his camera, came to the rescue when the yacht began to take on water. On the way, he chanced upon a father and son in a state of panic and helped them out before returning to check all the cabins. There were no vacationers there. “I didn’t panic, I was just sure we had to get out as soon as possible,” Meillah recalled.
The emergency hatch, which was supposed to take the man upstairs, jammed. Then he decided to get out by diving into the submerged part of the boat. “I jumped back into the submerged part of the ship and swam 15 meters under the surface of the water, thus managing to save myself,” he added.
Fortunately, all 26 guests and nine crew members of the yacht survived. It is still unclear why the ship, which was repaired only last year, capsized on a windless day and went to the bottom. Now the tourists plan to sue the boat owners and the tour company. There were also several reports in foreign media that the owners of the yacht “threatened the vacationers, lied to them, and pressured them to give false statements to the police.”