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| Holiday goes on for five divers who had thought they faced death, tied together and navigating by the stars, writes Caroline Davies The British divers lost in the Red Sea for 13 and a half hours after being swept away told yesterday how they feared they would die and how they believed dolphins led rescuers to them. As the five Britons, who were rescued with two Belgians and five Portuguese after a huge air and sea search, recovered yesterday they spoke of how they fought severe exhaustion, dehydration and sunburn. Boats and spotter planes failed to locate them when they lost contact with their Egyptian diving boat and were swept 45 miles away. They roped themselves together, told jokes and sang Christmas carols to keep their spirits up as they drifted further and further from the Oyster, their live-aboard boat. Yesterday the Britons, Richard Hallam, 28, the divemaster from Pickering, North Yorks, and friends Bruce de Courcy, 48, from Chilham, near Canterbury, and Paul Moulton, Geoff Woodfield and Alexandra Douglas, all from Wandsworth, south London, were continuing their holiday and back diving after their ordeal. "We are all pretty shaken," said Mr de Courcy, a water feature designer, who met the other three on a Red Sea diving trip last year." When
you think back, when you sit on your own and you think about it, it makes
you cry," he
said in an interview from the boat. They surfaced early and, following diving procedure, positioned a Surface Marker Buoy to alert the Oyster crew, although the current had already caused them to drift. But, possibly because of the sun and the reflection on the water, the marker buoy was not spotted by the crew. The 12 stuck together. Early on they saw a container ship and then another live-aboard ship, but the vessels passed by. Then, after six hours, they saw a spotter plane. By now a full-scale emergency search had been underway for hours involving a private helicopter, the Egyptian navy and alerts to all ships in the area, activated by the Oyster Club that organized the diving trip. "When we saw that plane, and it came right over our heads, we thought, 'That's it. We're safe'," said Mr de Courcy, a father of two daughters, aged 16 and 20, who runs a cider farm and garden centre in Chilham with his partner, Claire Raraty-Squires. "Then it didn't dip its wings, nothing happened and it appeared it hadn't seen us. So from a real high, we were down to a real low." The 12, most of whom had only met on the boat, kept each other going by talking about their backgrounds. They numbered Themselves one to 12 and every few minutes - especially when it got dark - called out their numbers in sequence to make sure all were there. Though the water was warm and they
were wearing wetsuits, they were
losing body
heat and
forced themselves to keep moving. "Everyone was searching in the wrong place," said Mr de Courcy, who is himself a qualified diving instructor. "Not only that, but when you are on the surface, you can't help wondering what's going to happen to your legs." Although he believed the sharks in the area were placid and did not normally attack humans, "you can't help but wonder what is down there". They spotted mountains in the dusk, tied themselves together and began swimming towards them slowly on their backs. Navigating by compass and two stars, they estimated they could reach the shore 30 miles away. "I think by that point we pretty much thought we had had it," said Mr de Courcy. Then at around 8.30pm they sighted the Thunderbird, another live-aboard boat, and this time their torch signals received a positive response. "It was adrenaline, relief, happiness," said Mr Hallam. On board, all celebrated with a cigarette - even the non-smokers. All were examined at the scene by a doctor and opted to continue their holiday. George Saleed, from the Oyster Club, said protocol had been followed to the strictest letter. Longwood Holidays, the London-based tour operators which booked the holiday, said they had used the Oyster Club for many years and regarded them as very reliable. An investigation is now under way by the Red Sea Association for Diving and Watersports. Mr Hallam, who has worked for the Oyster Club for two months, said: "One of the most amazing things was, after we were rescued, the guys on the boat said there were dolphins jumping across the bow in the direction we were actually in. "We heard dolphins when we were in the water, we could hear their echo location. I think those dolphins drew attention to us. There are stories about dolphins helping humans in distress, protecting them. And I think those dolphins helped us."
JUDGE
TO U.S.: DON'T CUT PROTECTIONS FOR DOLPHINS In the latest round of five-year-long litigation over use of the "dolphin safe" label on tuna, pitting dolphins against international diplomacy, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson overturned a 2002 administrative finding that dolphin stock was not being significantly harmed by foreign tuna-netting. Henderson said a review of documents
leading to the finding, made by Commerce Secretary Donald Evans,
showed Evans ignored his department's scientific studies. Henderson
said the documents presented "a
compelling portrait of political meddling" by Secretary of State
Colin Powell and other high-ranking
officials on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. In his ruling Tuesday, the judge ordered that " 'dolphin safe' shall continue to mean that 'no tuna were caught ... using a purse seine net intentionally deployed on or to encircle dolphins, and that no dolphins were killed or seriously injured' " on the trip in which the tuna were caught. David Phillips, director of Earth Island Institute, said Henderson "averted a disaster for dolphins," which have perished by the millions in tuna nets in the past half-century. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, which defended Evans in the case, said Henderson's opinion would be reviewed before the government determines its next step. Henderson rejected what he said was a government position that "international concerns and competing policies for protecting dolphins" should be taken into account in setting the U.S. labeling standard. Laws passed by Congress in 1990 and 1997 mandated what the standard would be and specified the research evidence that would be required before any future relaxation of the rules, Henderson said. He said the Commerce Department dragged its feet on conducting the necessary research, put obstacles in its own path, ignored the best available scientific evidence and "compromised the integrity of its finding by allowing trade policy considerations to infect the decision-making process. Bahamas Wild Dolphin Vacations
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