A California couple honeymooning in Hawaii said a snorkeling tour group abandoned them in the ocean for more than an hour, ultimately forcing them to swim to shore.
Elizabeth Webster and her husband, Alexander Burckle, detailed the terrifying Sept. 23, 2021, ordeal in a federal lawsuit filed last month. The couple was among 44 passengers embarking from Lahaina Harbor at 10 a.m. for Sail Maui’s Lanai Coast snorkel tour, the suit stated.The couple said in the lawsuit that the captain informed everyone that the boat would remain anchored in the location for about an hour before moving on to a second location.
“The water was choppy and Plaintiffs started swimming more aggressively towards the Vessel,” the suit stated. “At approximately 12:20 p.m., after another 15 minutes of aggressive swimming, the Vessel was clearly farther from Plaintiffs than it was at the last time they had checked.” Burckle and his wife tried to swim in the direction the boat was moving but the water was getting deeper, according to the lawsuit. They began to panic as they struggled “to swim in the ocean conditions,” it said.“Plaintiffs realized the Vessel had left them and was not coming back for them, and they decided that their only option for survival at that point was to return to shore,” the suit stated.
The suit claimed that a passenger on the boat tried to tell a crew member that Burckle and his wife had swum farther out in the ocean during the excursion, but the crew member allegedly told the passenger that they had made it back.
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