Stranded couple found at sea
A north London couple left stranded in the ocean without food and water for six hours after their speed boat ran out of petrol have this week paid tribute to the rescuers that saved them.
Ryan Musicant and girlfriend Laura Susman were a thirty minute boat-ride away from the Croatian island of Hvar, and 10 miles from the shore, when they realised their boat, which had no speed gauge, could take them no further.
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Laura, 26, said: "The engine stopped and I cried. After a few attempts trying the engine we finally gave up. Ryan called Bruno, who had rented the boat out to us, to let him know we had run out of petrol and gave him our location. We were assured he knew where we were and he would be with us soon.
"All of a sudden, visibility became difficult and darkness arrived. There were no boats in sight. We tried to call the boat owner again only, this time, the phone broke. There was a full battery but a screen that froze”.
Laura, exhausted and wrapped up in Ryan's t-shirt and towel, relied on her boyfriend of nine months to keep awake and on the lookout for rescue boats. Ryan had been flashing his camera throughout the night in a bid to draw attention to their boat.
She added: "Ryan must have taken a hundred pictures to try and signal - thank goodness his camera was working!"
Eventually they were rescued after a boat shone at them from the distance.
She said: "I was abruptly awoken from my exhaustion to be told there was a light in the distance.
"Within minutes the boat had pulled up along side us and a man jumped onboard ours, tied the boats together and said, 'Ryan and Laura? We have been looking for you'."
It turned out to be a ministry of sea rescue boat, one of seven boats, including Bruno's, that had been looking for them .
Ryan, 30, said : "It was only after that we understood what could have happened; a ferry could have hit our boat, which had no lights.
"Another stroke of luck was that the navy had located us by tracing the signal of my last phone call to Bruno. We were totally reliant on their endeavour."
He added: "We look back and laugh now but, in hindsight realise it probably wasn't the best idea to take out a boat without a speed gauge. We did however get to see a lot of Croatia that day, including the famous green caves."
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