A Nottinghamshire father and son say they are lucky to be alive after their liveaboard yacht capsized in the Red Sea. David, 53, and his 21-year-old son Christian, both of Treadwell, near Retford, had booked a week-long diving excursion.
During the trip a total of 26 guests lived aboard the Carlton Queen, which took them around the locality of Egypt. The pair have been diving since 2014, and have a lot of experience doing so.
David explained that the trip was supposed to be a week of "eating, sleeping, diving and repeat." However, when he boarded the boat, he noticed there was something "unorthodox" about the Carlton Fleet's vessel reports Lincolnshire Live.
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He said: "There was a listing to this boat. Boats are normal level to the water, but this had a slight angle pointing to the left - the left-hand side was noticeably down. But I thought nothing of it."
On the evening of April 22, 2023 all the guests were briefed on safety, and then set sail during the early hours of April 23 for their first diving site, which was a night time dive. However, the listing to port (the left-hand side of the boat) was "noticeably increasing"
David continued: "But it travelled okay and it didn't seem unsafe. Our knowledge was very limited so we relied a lot on the fact there were safeguards in place.
"Looking back in hindsight, you think of the signs you missed. One morning we were drinking orange juice, and if you put your glass on the table it would slide along to the left. But it was just a joke."
After the first dive that morning, they retired to their cabins on the lower decks of the yacht where their windows close to the waterline. At around 6:30am the guests woke up for the briefing on the next dive, which was a look around the wreck of the Giannis D at the Abu Nuhas reef.
The Taylors went back to their cabin for a quick nap ahead of the next dive, which was due at around 9.20am. David said: "The next time I was woken up was when the ship rolled and through our window, which you could normally see the sky, I could see seawater.
"I thought, 'That's strange,' and tried to go back to sleep. The second time it listed heavily was about 40 seconds later, I've been told, and it happened again - you could see seawater.
"On the third time it happened, about 30 seconds later, I ended up between the two cabin beds. My son rolled over onto the window, and he could see fish - but he didn't go back."
Dave continued: "I had a really deep-seated feeling of dread and fear that I'd never experienced before. The boat had capsized.
"I was looking up to the door of our cabin and I was fearing for our lives." David shouted at his son to get out and hopped onto a cupboard to climb out of the door and then helped him out of their accommodation, standing in a hallway on its side with their cabin beneath them.
He said: "Throughout all of this, you really do think you're going to die. But you get out of the cabin and you're quite euphoric - you no longer fear for your life. All of a sudden, you're alright.
"But then we go to the stairwell, and we knew we couldn't use the stairs. The way it was orientated, the stairs were now the wall.
"And we were standing on the walls as floors. No water was coming in that we knew of, but you knew it was on its side and you knew you were in trouble because you couldn't get out."
The pair were joined by another diver, known to David as Fernando, and together they made their way to cabin eight, where they was an escape hatch. However, there was no handles that they could use to get out.
David said: "I remember looking at Fernando, who was knee-deep in water, and thinking: 'Oh my God'. He suggested we make our way back to the stairwell, which we did - but I was losing the plot.
"I was very fearful. I didn't want to see my son die and I didn't want to die myself. I asked Christian if he could climb but he couldn't get up the ceiling, which was now the wall."
Fernando suggested that Christian climbed up David and grab hold of the guardrail into the saloon lounge, where they could attempt to escape. David said he'd only spoken to Fernando for five minutes before they got on the boat, but he helped the pair escape to safety.
Fernando told David to use him as a ladder so he could escape to the saloon and David 'didn't argue with him'. He said: "Now I'm sitting on top of the guardrails, and I can see my son and I can see Fernando - and I calmed down.
"But water was coming through the back of the boat and one of the doors was broken - but it just looked like something out of the Poseidon Adventure. While I had been panicking in the stairwell, my son had swam out to the doors and had been able to get onto the dive deck.
"People above him had shouted at him to get out, but Christian was saying he needed a rope. He managed to grab a scuba cylinder, with an inflatable buoyancy compensating device [an inflatable jacket - referred to a a BCD], and he walked back into the ship."
As he headed back in, he was knocked under one of the upside-down sofas by a surge of water but he managed to get the BCD to his dad. At this point, Fernando told David to go on without him and save his son.
David said: "This man who helped me is now telling me to go. I told him I couldn't go, that I couldn't leave him. But he said I had to go and I had to save my son.
"He shouted at me to go and I left him. It was really, really hard."
David regrouped with Christian and got into the saloon, but then David was struck by a scuba cylinder - causing deep cuts to his head. He was pushed underneath the water by a second surge.
He stated: "Unknown to me, he held my legs to make sure I didn't go any further underneath. I panicked and he helped me get out from under a settee.
"We were there for maybe 30 seconds - it was peaceful and neither of us said anything. Then he said he was going to go for it, he was going to rush the doors.
"He was able to get the timing right between the surge coming through and retracting out the boat and managed to get through the door." David said his son 'manhandled' him and pulled him through the broken doors and onto the dive deck.
He added: "I was bleeding from the head, apparently. My boy pushed me forward because he didn't want me going back into the boat."
The crew above saw the pair and dropped a rope down to help them climb out. The pair made their way to the back of the boat but couldn't get off, as they kept being pushed back.
David said: "I made the decision to swim in the open ocean. The current was taking us away from the boat and I kept shouting that I was tired - and I was. I was incredibly tired."
The crew threw down a buoy and Christian swam over to the buoy and brought it back to his father. The whole ordeal lasted for a terrifying 25 minutes and they were rescued by a rib boat from a nearby liveaboard.
David said: "I kept saying that Fernando was still aboard, that he was still in there. He did get out.
"And he said that Christian bringing in that scuba equipment gave him hope." Fernando reportedly managed to escape by swimming through the hallway and free-diving out through the dive deck.
The cuts to David's head required stitches, as did the lacerations on his chest and hip. He said: "Without a doubt, my son is a hero.
"He got me off that boat and the way he went on to the dive deck and recovered that scuba cylinder, which even helped Fernando - he's a hero. I lost the plot but he kept it all together. I'm very proud of him."
It was a miracle that the passengers and crew managed to get out safely, but the 'what-ifs' still linger in David's mind as he feels if Fernando had arrived a matter of minutes later, he would have never have made it to the Taylors.
David said: "I wouldn't have been able to get out - and I know that Christian wouldn't have left me." A spokesperson for Carlton Fleet has been quoted in Scuba Diving magazine as saying they are co-operating with the Egyptian authorities to determine the cause of the accident.
They told the publication: "The safe return of all those on board bears testament to the crew members' effective management of the situation, which spared the lives of all passengers." Lincolnshire Live attempted to contact Carlton Fleet but did not hear back at the time of publication.
A fundraiser has been set up by passengers Zoe and Dominic Schmitt to help recoup the losses of equipment.
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