From Vacation to Adrift off the Goan Coast

I remember the moment distinctly. He was clearly an ex-pat, dressed in a linen suit with a panama hat perched on his head, sitting on the balcony of the film director's summer chalet overlooking the ocean in Panaji, Goa.

"Is this your first time in India?" he'd asked. When I replied in the affirmative, he allowed himself a wry smile. "Well remember," he continued smoothly, "you're not in Eastbourne. If you get into trouble out here you won't have Air-Sea Rescue looking for you. You're on your own."

I'd arrived in Goa with my friend Gilly for a holiday only 48 hours before. On our first morning we'd got into conversation with a local on the beach, who was standing next to a motor boat. Hearing we'd just arrived and were anxious to sample the maritime delights of this beautiful corner of India, he'd offered to take us out in his boat the next morning.

Picnic, snorkelling, some beers, everything to be provided. "Be here tomorrow at 11. Oh, and I'll need a deposit for supplies."

We'd duly handed over several hundred rupees. Next morning we arrived on time with our swimming trunks, towels, and huge anticipation.

But the man was nowhere to be seen, and nor were our rupees. Instead, a sleek Indian businessman, one we'd never seen before, was stowing a cool box and some wet suits into the well of the boat.

"You've been fleeced," he explained. "I am the owner of this boat. My name is Prahled. I am a film director. And I know nothing of the gentleman to whom you refer."

But then our luck had changed. Hearing we were actors, Prahled invited us to join him and some business associates on an exact facsimile of our promised itinerary. After a brief detour along the coast to his beachside chalet to pick up his associates and some supplies (and where his friend with the panama had been sipping drinks on the verandah) we set off.

And what a day it proved. We spent the day on an island some 15 miles offshore, eating prawns as large as cats, drinking beer, snorkelling and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

At 4pm we set off back for the mainland under a fierce afternoon sun. And then it happened. About 15 minutes into the return journey the outboard motor spectacularly blew up, billowing smoke and diesel fumes into the salty air. Our little craft was now a mere cork, bobbing about in increasingly boisterous waves, far from land. No tool kit, no mobile phones, no oars, and only one lifebelt between the six of us.

As day turned to night, the waves grew in size, and our seasickness along with them. I found myself drifting off into a petrified torpor. Meanwhile, Gilly, being an indefatigable Northern girl, tried to rig up her cardigan as a sail.

About midnight a searchlight on the prow of an approaching fishing smack picked out our stricken vessel. We leapt to our feet, shouting and waving as if extras in a production of The Cruel Sea. It seemed too good to be true. The fishing smack did two circuits of our boat and melted off in the darkness without so much as offering a rope. I knew then we were doomed.

By 2am and with the boat now a third full of water, Prahled and one of his friends decided to swim, using the one available lifebelt, towards the lights of a town now distantly twinkling in the far distance. They dropped over the side and disappeared into the inky blackness. Either they'd return with rescue, or one – or both – of our respective parties would perish. I settled back and said my prayers.

It was 4am when we heard the thrum of an engine. Out of the night a boat appeared, with a triumphant Prahled standing on the prow, and now clutching a bottle of scotch. A throw of a line, a churn of water, and we were on or way back to Goa and salvation.

"This isn't Eastbourne." Whenever I'm in a strange country and tempted to embark on some hare-brained adventure I wouldn't dream of at home, the ex-pat's words still act as the acid test.

How to get there: Flights to Goa go from all over Europe, via Mumbai or Doha.

What to bring: Flexibility and stoicism. Your best-laid plans will be continually blown off course by this chaotic, technicolour country.