Emily Brown
A California couple who went to Hawaii for their honeymoon have filed a lawsuit claiming they were abandoned in the middle of the ocean while on a snorkeling trip.
Elizabeth Webster and Alexander Burckle were celebrating their marriage with the romantic trip in September 2021 when they joined 42 other passengers for the Lanai Coast snorkel tour run by Sail Maui.
The boat left Lahaina Harbor at 10am local time, and all 44 passengers entered the water at about 10:50am with instructions to swim north.
The guests were told the boat would stay in the same location for about an hour before moving on, so at about 11:50am the couple began to make their way back to the boat.
Both Webster and Burckle were experienced snorkelers who had been to Maui several times, but after about 15 minutes they realised they 'still had not made progress towards the boat' due to choppy waters in the area.
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The lawsuit, filed against Sail Maui, claims: "The water was choppy and Plaintiffs started swimming more aggressively towards the Vessel. At approximately 12:20p.m., after another 15 minutes (approx.) of aggressive swimming, the Vessel was clearly farther from Plaintiffs than it was at the last time they had checked."
The suit states that crew members were alerted to the fact Webster and Burckle weren't on the boat by another passenger, but they allegedly assured the passenger the couple were on board.
The crew has been accused of miscounting the number of people who returned from snorkeling because passengers were not told to sit still while the crew member was doing a head count.
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Still in the water, Webster and Burckle tried to signal they were in distress and call for help, but the boat continued to move on to its second location.
They tried to swim in the same direction as the boat but the water was getting deeper and the pair began to panic, struggling to 'swim in the ocean conditions'.
They were about half a mile from shore and worried they might drown, so 'decided that their only option for survival at that point was to return to shore'.
"Plaintiffs were extremely fearful and nervous about the decision because they were told in the safety briefing explicitly not to swim to Lanai and that shallow reefs were in the area," the lawsuit said.
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The honeymooners managed to reach shore at about 1pm, dehydrated and fatigued. They then received help from a resident on the island.
Webster and Burckle are suing Sail Maui for negligence and emotional distress in the wake of the incident.
UNILAD has contacted Sail Maui for comment.