Lost at sea

[Skylace]

They were both on the Today show this morning and they really seem to be coming under fire. Which I find silly. They even said they are going to be paying for part of the search as they have SCUBA insurance for this type of thing. I am just glad they are safe and it didn't end up as another "Open Water" story.

[faceless]

I really can't see the Sunday Mirror paying anything near £500000 for their story - they might get £100 000. For £500 000 you'd need to have pictures of the Queen frottaging a corgi!

Still, it's good to see they're paying some cash towards the rescue, even though the only real cost is in fuel as the emergency services are on standby anyway.

[major.tom]

I'm inclined to agree. Being abandoned at sea doesn't strike me as the easiest way to make a few quid. And from the sound of it, they're perfectly willing to assume any cost stemming from their misadventure which might fall on Australian taxpayers.

[faceless]

Richard Neely and Allyson Dalton deny diving for gold
The Daily Telegraph (Au)
By Stefanie Balogh in New York
May 29, 2008 12:00am

THE couple who miraculously survived 19 hours in north Queensland waters said they are heartbroken over what they call "preposterous" and "mortifying" talk they staged the incident. British dive instructor Richard Neely, 38, and American partner Allyson Dalton, yesterday told The Daily Telegraph they were adamant the Great Barrier Reef dive operator was to blame for what could have been a deadly mishap.

They also denied taking a water bottle on the dive, rejected claims they failed to follow safety instructions or broke any rules when they were separated from their diving group at Paradise Lagoon, off Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays region off north Queensland on Friday.

Ms Dalton even suggested OzSail, the owner of the Pacific Star dive charter, should pay any part of their costly rescue bill not covered by their diving insurance. "Our insurance covers the rescue but we wouldn't have been in that situation had the dive company followed standard operating procedures and therefore it's not our fault that there was all of this effort made to rescue us - it was the dive boat operators," she said.

Speaking in New York after an interview with NBC's Today Show, the couple also told The Daily Telegraph they wanted to again thank their Australian rescuers and if they could, they would take them out for a beer. The couple was rescued against the odds early on Saturday after spending Friday night out in choppy shark-infested waters. But an escalating bitter war of words has erupted between the divers and OzSail.

The company accused the pair of failing to follow "clear instructions" and questioned their story and at least one passenger contradicted their claims that they saw no activity on the boat while they were waiting to be rescued. Ms Dalton, 40, said the couple were victims and the way some people had attacked them was "heartbreaking".

"We thought we were going to die," she said. "We came that close that we really were on the verge of giving up. Why would we put ourselves in that position in any intentional way?" She said it made "absolutely zero sense" and she could see no logical reason why the couple would want to stage their disappearance.

Mr Neely said they had been paid less than $10,000 for their interview with the Sunday Mirror in London. The couple also appeared on the Nine Network in Australia. "We have approached nobody. We have been approached," he said. The couple is also doing interviews with NBC's high rating Dateline program. It has been rumoured the couple could net about $US250,000 ($261,000) from all of their media deals.

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Less than $10000 from the Sunday Mirror? I was being too generous... haha