US tourist left behind on Great Barrier Reef
SYDNEY—An American tourist said he was terrified of drowning after realizing his tour boat had left him behind after a snorkelling trip on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Ian Cole, 28, had to swim to another nearby boat after a mistaken headcount saw him stranded off Michaelmas Cay, a reef-ringed sand island near Cairns, on Saturday afternoon.
He said he panicked when he surfaced to find the boat gone, “which was the worst thing I could have done at that point”.
“I was able to calm myself just a little bit because there was another boat still out there and I made my way to that vessel,” he told the local Cairns Post newspaper Wednesday.
“Lucky it was there because otherwise I may have drowned, I did not handle the situation well and I was tired.”
Australian dive operators must comply with strict headcount rules following the 1998 disappearance of a US couple, Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who were presumed eaten by sharks after being left behind by their Barrier Reef tour.
Dive leaders failed to notice they were missing until two days later, when they found some of the Lonergans’ personal effects on the boat. An extensive police and navy search failed to locate the couple.
The horror film “Open Water” is based on their story.
Tourism operators’ spokesman Colin McKenzie said Cole was left beside a beach and “never in any danger” but the staff member responsible for the botched count had been sacked and a full refund offered.
“He’s also been given a letter of apology,” said McKenzie, chief of the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators.
“He’s also been given a voucher to use at one of our better restaurants to say ‘Look, sorry for that’,” he told ABC radio.
