"All of us kept talking to each other when we were drifting in the sea," said one of the divers, 38-year-old Tu Ting-chang after being rescued from the sea yesterday afternoon.

He added that the divers called each others' names every three minutes to keep every one conscious, and they drank rainwater when they were thirsty, which was why they were able to survive the ordeal.

Drifted away

\All eight divers - six men and two women - were rescued in the country's eastern county, Taitung, around 10:30 a.m. yesterday.

The group of divers had drifted over 100 kilometers at sea from the location where they were originally reported missing last Saturday, near Chihsingyen (Seven Star Rocks), 22 km southwest of the southernmost tip of Taiwan.

The divers were promptly airlifted to Mackay Memorial Hospital (馬偕醫院) in Taitung for treatment after they were rescued yesterday.

All of them were in stable condition except for minor sunburn and low body temperatures, according to their doctors.

The rescue mission was made possible thanks to the diving group's dive coach 32-year-old male Ting Po-ling, whose remarkable feat of endurance of swimming for nearly half a day to shore for help finally saved the whole team.

Eleven-hour swim

Ting, after a waiting in vain for rescuers for nearly 24 hours, set off on an 11-hour swim of more than 5 km, fighting against the strong currents of the Black Tide. After he finally reached the shore around midnight Sunday in Taimali in Taitung County, Ting immediately informed local coast guard of the location of the seven remaining divers.

In the meantime, the seven divers saved their energy by floating on their backs and held hands with each other to avoid being separated.

The rescue team began their search in the coastal area around Taimali and soon spotted four of the divers at around 1:35 a.m.

The four were spotted in pitch dark water because they kept swinging their flashlights, according to the crew of a helicopter mobilized by the Pingtung air base, who rescued them.

At 5:50 a.m. yesterday, the rescue team found another surviving diver on the beach. The rescuers found the final two divers, Wang Chih-yu, 25 and Lee Su-ling, 44, near the Taitung coast at around 10:30 a.m. to successfully wrap up the mission.

The eight people gone diving at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in waters between Oluanbi and Chihsingyen, a popular diving spot off Kenting national park in southern Taiwan's Pingtung County with the assistance of a diving company.

When they did not return to the boat an hour after they were originally scheduled to, the diving company reported them missing and an all-out search promptly began around Saturday noon.

The rescue mission did not go well for the first two days with no sightings of the party. The helpless and worried families of the missing divers, therefore went to several famous temples around the Kenting area to ask for instructions from the deities on Sunday afternoon.

At Shui Wang (Sea God) temple in Hengchun township the shaman told the families that the deities had given an assurance that all the divers had survived and were awaiting rescue in the sea. Within a few hours the divers began to be found, and as foretold by the local deities, all had survived their ordeal.

Coincidentally, yesterday was also local Taoist deity Matsu's birthday, who is the goddess of the sea.