Unable to reach the exit at the front, Lucianna and Christophe ended up in an air pocket in the engine room at the stern (rear) of the boat, which was still sticking out of the water. They did not understand where they were until they were joined in the tiny space, some time later, by one of the dive instructors, Youssef al-Faramawy.
The three of them would stay there, sitting on fuel tanks, for about 35 hours.
Outside the boat, Sarah, Hissora and the others who had jumped off eventually found the two life rafts, which had deployed after the sinking. As they clambered on board, they saw the boat’s captain and a number of other crew members were already there.
“There should be some supplies in here,” Sarah remembers one of the other guests saying. All the people we spoke to recall a safety briefing mentioning that the life rafts had food and water in them – but they did not, the BBC were told.
“We found a torch, but again it didn’t have any batteries. We didn’t have any water or any food,” Sarah says. “There were flares, but they had already been used.”
Sarah also says of the three blankets on board the raft, one had been taken by the captain for himself, leaving one for the rest of the crew and another for the guests. “We ripped it up and huddled together,” says Sarah.
The rafts were met by rescue vessels at about 11:00 on the morning of 25 November, about eight hours after the capsizing. Both they, and the boat, had drifted eastwards.
Back on board the Sea Story, Lucianna heard the rescue helicopter – but her ordeal was far from over.
“At this time we were very happy, but we had to wait 27 hours more,” she says.
Despite the boat having been located, the rescue effort was slow to reach them. “We had no communication with the outside, nothing. No-one tried to see if there was someone alive in there,” Lucianna says.
She tells me there were moments when darkness and despair overtook her. “I was so ready to die. We didn’t think that someone would come.”
After several hours trapped in the air pocket, the dive guide, Youssef, wanted to try to swim through the boat, but Lucianna and Christophe persuaded him not to. “Stay with us because they are going to come to get our bodies, so they will find us,” Lucianna recalls telling him.
Eventually, after nearly a day and a half stuck in the hull of the Sea Story, a light appeared in the darkness.
A local Egyptian diving instructor, Khattab al-Faramawi, who was Youssef’s uncle, had braved the wreck, diving through the submerged corridors looking for people. He took Youssef out first, then, after another hour’s delay because of issues with the breathing apparatus, returned to lead Lucianna and her partner to safety. “I hugged him so hard,” says Lucianna. “I was very, very happy.”
In total, five people from the Sea Story were rescued by divers, including a Swiss man and a Finnish woman who had survived in another air pocket inside their cabin on the lower deck. Four bodies were recovered.
