Marooned divers describe ordeal among Komodo dragons

Three British divers, rescued after a 45-hour ordeal which began when they were swept away by treacherous Indian Ocean currents, were last night recovering on a secluded island as the mother of one told how her daughter felt lucky to be alive after the terrifying experience.

Charlotte Allin, her boyfriend, James Manning, 30, and the group leader, Kath Mitchinson, were with two other divers when the group got into difficulties on Thursday following a dive off Bali, inside Indonesia's Komodo national park.

The five were caught in a rip current and survived for nine hours among huge waves before managing to swim to Rinca island, off the western coast of Flores, where they spent two nights and were finally discovered by park rangers.

They said they had to scavenge for shellfish on the island and scare away a Komodo dragon - the world's largest lizard - by throwing stones at it.

At the family home in Bideford, north Devon, Susan Allin, mother of Charlotte, said she had spoken to her daughter twice following the rescue. She said the 24-year-old was still in shock. "She said they were going somewhere quiet where they can just chill out and come to terms with what they have been through.

"Charlotte said it had been a very scary experience being in the water for so long and being on the island. They had problems with the Komodo dragons and I got the impression that was only part of the picture - it was pretty scary on the beach. She is in a state of complete shock. She said she just can't believe what has happened to them and how lucky they are to be alive."

Yesterday another of the group, Helena Nevalainen, 38, from Sweden, told how she used her diving weight belt to scare off one of the lizards as it lunged at her three times. "It was big ... It tried to have a go at my feet. I threw my diving belt. He came back and bit my diving belt, then he let go. After that he came back one more time."

The group, which also included Laurent Pinel, 31, from France, had tied themselves together in the water and managed to keep afloat as they were pushed along by the strong current. They used the last of their strength to swim to the island. Speaking of their time in the water, Nevalainen said: "We didn't know where we were. We were trying to reach land many times but couldn't because the current was too strong. We were spinning around."

Their rescuers found them on Rinca, 20 miles from where they disappeared, after spotting their red "safety sausage" flotation devices laid out in a cross on the rocks shortly before noon on Saturday. The group, sunburned and exhausted, were ferried to hospital on Flores and treated for dehydration and cuts and bruises.

They were discharged that evening and celebrated at the Paradise bar in Lubuan Bajo, the base for their expedition. "They had a bit of a party," said Anke Winkler, the co-owner of the town's Bajo Dive Club.

Yesterday the Britons left to spend the night on Bidadari island. A divemaster at the Reefseekers dive shop on Flores, run by Mitchinson and her husband, Ernest Lewandowski, 53, said: "I think they need a couple of days to have a rest because they worked hard in the open sea." Mitchinson and Lewandowski, who ran the WPG Marine Centre in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, before moving to Indonesia 15 years ago, have been living on Flores for seven years, taking divers on excursions in the national park.

Allin met Manning three years ago while travelling in Asia. A former soldier, Manning served with the 59 Independent Commando Squadron of the Royal Engineers until leaving four years ago to work as a dive instructor. The pair worked at a dive business at Ko Phi Phi, and were on a month's diving holiday in Indonesia.

Susan Allin said both were very experienced, well-trained divers, and Manning's time in the forces had made him "very calm and resourceful in a crisis".