The rescuer of a couple stranded miles offshore for two nights after their boat broke down has recounted their lucky discovery.

“I thought they were joking at first, saying they’d been out there for nearly three days,” Chris Gauntlett, a Captain with the Bermuda Regiment and the owner of Blue Water Divers, said.

“They’d been through their food; they still had some water, so they weren’t in terrible shape. But another day or half-day and they would have been out of water.”

The two, who had been debating attempting to paddle ashore by the time of their rescue on Saturday, were at anchor some five miles off the West End near Chubb Head.

While the man was an experienced fisherman who’d spent the night offshore before, Capt Gauntlett said the woman was “very, very stressed out — she’d never been out on a boat before.”

She got an unpleasant introduction to the sea after the electrics cut out on their vessel on Thursday evening.

Signal flares and smoke hadn’t brought any rescue, and other craft had passed them by without realising the 17ft De Wocka Flocka was in difficulty.

Compounding their woes, according to Capt Gauntlett, was the fact that the boat’s FM radio had been stolen some time earlier and hadn’t yet been replaced. In addition, their phones were out of batteries.

“I was captaining the boat, Modern Sinbad, and happened to be in the area of the Chubb Head beacon,” Capt Gauntlett said. “By that stage, they were using a little hand powered air horn.

“I heard the noise. We had divers in the water — the question, if I thought it was an emergency, would have been one of going over there immediately. I was able to see them through binoculars. It was anchored, with people on board; they weren’t waving or jumping up and down, so I waited until I had the people back on board. They’d already used their smoke and flares.”

Half an hour later, the relieved pair were met by Capt Gauntlett, who towed them into Ely’s Harbour, and also contacted family and coworkers who’d raised the alarm.

The two were fortunate to be anchored in a calm, he said, adding: “They weren’t going anywhere unless the weather had gotten much worse. We were just happy — we’d been out in a similar area just the previous day. We’d been in the vicinity of Chubb Head but farther away.”

The two weren’t available for comment last night.