Survivors of the Sea Story dive boat disaster have shared their terrifying memories of being trapped in the pitch black for 35 hours after their vessel sank.
The ordeal took place in November 2024 after the luxury dive boat set off from Egypt’s Red Sea coast with 31 international guests, three diving instructors and 12 Egyptian crew members on board.
The trip was set to last six days, and passenger Lucianna Galetta remembered the boat being ‘really nice’, ‘very big’ and ‘very clean’.
Lucianna is one of a few survivors who spoke about the tragedy with BBC News, with those on board remembering the boat seemed more unstable than they would have expected on the first night of the trip.
How did water get on board the Sea Story?
Sarah Martin, a British doctor who was on board the boat, remembered the weather wasn’t ‘terrible’, but furniture was ‘sliding around’ on the deck.
Hissora Gonzalez, a diver from Spain, struggled to sleep due to the motion on the boat, and just before 3am the entire vessel flipped onto its side and the engines cut out, resulting in total darkness.
Survivors recalled people being thrown from their beds, while possessions fell and obstructed exits. One survivor became trapped under heavy furniture.
Hissora said she didn’t know if she was walking on ‘the floor, on the ceiling [or] on the side’ of the boat, but she tried to find a life jacket. She recalled hearing water coming inside the boat, but she couldn’t see it.
How did survivors of the Sea Story get out?
The door to Hissora’s cabin ended up being above her, but she managed to escape when her friend, Cristhian Cercos, pulled her up.
A small group of passengers began to make their way along the emergency staircase, with Sarah describing how they had to ‘climb along door frames and beams’, through cooking oil and broken eggs that had fallen in the chaos.
When survivors reached the top deck, they had to jump 7-10 feet into the ocean.
“If the boat was going down, we needed to get away so it wouldn’t pull us down with it,” Sarah said.
Sarah’s cabin mate, Natalia Sanchez Fuster, tried to use debris to break the windows and help those still inside the boat, but she wasn’t able to get through the glass.
Sarah and Natalia had managed to grab life jackets, but they noticed the lights on them weren’t working.
“Looking back, I don’t think there were any batteries in there,” Sarah told the BBC.
Those who had jumped off the vessel managed to find two life rafts, though Sarah alleged a torch on board ‘didn’t have any batteries’, and there wasn’t ‘any water or any food’.
How did passengers become trapped?
Lucianna Galettan and her partner, Christophe Lemmens, weren’t able to make it to the top deck of the boat. Instead, they ended up in an air pocket in the engine room at the back, which was left sticking out of the water as the boat sank.
The couple were joined by one of the dive instructors, Youssef al-Faramawy, and the trio remained there for about 35 hours as they waited for help to arrive.
Rescue vessels were at the site of the sinking about eight hours after it took place, but those inside had ‘no communication with the outside’.
Another 27 hours later, the three survivors saw a light as a local diving instructor explored the wreck to search for survivors. He was able to lead all three to safety.
In another area of the boat, a Swiss man and a Finnish man had also managed survived in another air pocket.
Why did the Sea Story sink?
In the aftermath of the sinking, Egyptian officials said a huge wave had caused the boat to capsize. However, Dr Simon Boxall, a leading oceanographer from the University of Southampton, analyzed the weather and claimed there was ‘no way a 4m (13ft) wave could have occurred in that region, at that time’.
Those on board claimed the furniture on the top deck of the boat was not secured and may have shifted to one side of the boat, potentially causing it to become unstable.
Survivors also noted that the Sea Story sank between 2am-3am, but a distress signal was not received by local authorities until about 5:30am.
Egyptian authorities have opened an investigation into the sinking, but the findings have not yet been reported.
In total, 35 people were rescued from the boat, while up to 11 people died or are still missing.
UNILAD has reached out to Dive Pro Liveaboard for comment.
