Red Sea tourist boat sinks: survivors tell BBC of terrifying escapes

Unable to reach the forward exit, Lucianna and Christophe ended up in an air pocket in the engine room at the stern (rear) of the ship, which was still sticking out of the water. They did not understand where they were until a little later, one of the diving instructors, Youssef al-Faramawy, joined them in the small space.

The three of them would stay there for about 35 hours, sitting on the fuel tanks.

Outside the boat, Sarah, Hissora, and the others who jumped in eventually found two life rafts, which opened after the sinking. As they climbed aboard, they saw the ship’s captain and several other crew members already there.

“There should be some supplies here,” Sarah remembers one of the guests saying. All the people we spoke to recall the safety briefing mentioning that the life rafts had food and water – but they didn’t, the BBC was told.

“We found a torch, but again it had no batteries. We had no water or food,” says Sarah. “There were flares, but they had already been used.”

Sarah also says of the three blankets on the raft, the captain took one for himself, leaving one for the rest of the crew and one for the guests. “We tore it up and pulled it together,” says Sarah.

The rafts were met by rescue vessels at around 11:00 am on 25 November, around eight hours after the capsize. Both they and the boat drifted eastward.

Back on Sea Story, Lucianna heard the rescue helicopter – but her ordeal was far from over.

“We were very happy then, but we had to wait another 27 hours,” she says.

Despite the boat being located, the rescue team was slow to reach them. “We had no communication with the outside, nothing. No one tried to see if there was anyone alive inside,” says Lucianna.

She tells me that there were times when she was overwhelmed by darkness and despair. “I was so ready to die. We didn’t think anyone would come.”

After several hours trapped in the air pocket, the dive guide, Youssef, wanted to try to swim across the boat, but Lucianna and Christophe persuaded him not to. “Stay with us because they’re going to come for our bodies, and they’re going to find us,” Lucianna recalls telling him.

Finally, after nearly a day and a half stuck in the hull of the Sea Story, light appeared in the darkness.

A local Egyptian diving instructor, Khattab al-Faramawi, who was Youssef’s uncle, bravely encountered the wreckage, diving through underwater corridors looking for people. He took Youssef out first, then, after another hour’s delay due to problems with the breathing apparatus, returned to take Lucianna and her partner to safety. “I gave him a big hug,” says Lucianna. – I was very, very happy.

Divers rescued a total of five people from Sea Story, including a Swiss man and a Finnish woman who survived in another air pocket inside their cabin on the lower deck. Four bodies were recovered.