A SCUBA dive in the shark-infested Red Sea almost ended in tragedy for the owner of a Kent cider farm.

Having set out on a 45-minute scuba dive on Sunday, alarm bells were raised when Bruce De Courcy, of Badger Hill Farm, Chilham, near Ashford, failed to return.

Mr De Courcy, 47, went missing with 12 others after they dived off-board at about 9am to explore the coral reefs off the Egyptian coast.

The group, which included five Britons, was missing for a total of 12 hours. Helicopters and ships formed a large-scale rescue force and found the divers 45 miles from where they set off.

All were in good health but suffering with mild dehydration. Their survival has been put down to the Red Sea being one of the warmest in the world.

Mr De Courcy's partner, Claire Squires, wanted to accompany him on the trip but decided to stay at home with their teenage daughter and look after the farm.

She said: "I've spoken to him and he's fine now. It was just a freak accident. The current got so bad it just swept them away, something which happens quite often. But after an hour or so things began to look bad for them.

"They are all fully competent and used their belts to tie themselves together, inflated their emergency balloons and paddled to stop hypothermia setting in. But their hearts sank when they saw a rescue plane go over and not see them.

"Fortunately they had three torches so did SOS in light and a boat finally picked them it up.

"Bruce has filmed the whole thing which should be interesting to watch. He told me that he had filmed the sunset because they didn't know if it would be the last one they saw."