Tina Watson had been married for just 11 days when she died scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef. What part did her husband Gabe play in her death? This exclusive extract from new book Honeymoon Dive sheds some light on the tragedy.
It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, but for American newlyweds Gabe and Tina Watson, their honeymoon on the Great Barrier Reef turned into a nightmare when a scuba diving trip went disastrously wrong.
Gabe, a trained rescue diver, and his less experienced wife were diving off the Queensland coast in 2003 when she died. Her husband claims she got into unexplained difficulties and he could not save her, so he went for help. Experienced divers claimed this did not make sense.
This extract from a new book recreates the tension and scepticism on the charter boat Spoilsport when Gabe returned to the surface without his wife. On the Spoilsport the news was out: Tina was missing. From then on events speeded up, overlapping each other in the confusion. Rebecca Hayllar, the hostess on the Spoilsport, grabbed the oxygen resuscitation gear and the DAN 02 kit from a cupboard and brought it all up to the dive deck.
Crewman Craig Haslet helped her place them in the dinghy. American tourist and experienced diver Ken Snyder had found Dr John Downie, a specialist doctor and diver from Chicago, who stepped hastily into the tender. Ken went to the back deck and found Gabe standing there. “My God. What happened?” Ken asked.
“We were into our dive – and at around 30 feet – Tina started to panic because she was over-weighted. I couldn’t control her. She was too heavy and she started flailing. She knocked my mask and regulator off and by the time I’d got myself organised, she had descended 10 feet below me and was sinking.
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