In a tale that is, quite literally, the plot of a horror movie, an Aussie family was left stranded after a scuba diving session in Fiji ‘cos of bad weather.
Newcastle mum and experienced diver Justine Clark and her sons Felix and Max, aged 18 and 20, were on a week-long cruise with Captain Cook Cruises Fiji. Already quite a red flag of a name, I won’t lie.
Clark spoke to the ABC, where she explained that the diving party included the fam, an English tourist and their divemaster. Sick job title, BTW. They’d booked the scuba-diving trip through a company subcontracted by the cruise line.
As they headed out to the dive site, the weather took a turn for the worse.
“We travelled into an approaching storm and out in open waters in what appeared to be a large channel about 20 kilometres from any island,” she said.
Then, after a 40 minute dive, when they popped up out of the water there was no tender boat to be seen. Clark’s description of the scene is truly terrifying.
“No tender boat was visible on surfacing, the swell was two metres, it was dark with grey clouds and high wind.”
Wow! That is literally an image from one of my nightmares!
According to Clark, the divemaster was also shocked and told the group he hadn’t seen something like this in 27 years of diving.
Captain Cook Cruises Fiji told the ABC that the tender boat had been blown away from the group’s diving site. The boat then wasn’t able to find the group again ‘cos of the shit weather.
With no boat to pick them up, the group had to swim for a nearby island. Clark said the situation massively activated her “maternal drive”.
“I can’t impress how concerned I was for everyone’s health, sharks and the sense of determination I had to reach the island in a calm manner,” she said.
I can certainly say that in the same situation, I would be absolutely losing my shite.
Luckily a rubbish-collecting boat spotted the group and came to their rescue. Quite literally a knight in shining, rubbish-collecting armour.
The group also reunited with the tender boat, whose operator apologised for the situation.
“He told me he was so scared and he had radioed the captain that he lost us,” Clark she said.
Captain Crook Cruises Fiji told the ABC its safety procedures had now changed and that it had done a full internal review ‘cos of the sitch.
Still, remind me to never, ever go into the open ocean ever again.
