A quick-thinking British tourist, adrift on a floundering ship in heavy seas off Indonesia was rescued after sending an SOS mobile phone text message to her boyfriend - who was drinking in a pub in England at the time.
Rebecca Fyfe, who was on a backpacking trip in Asia, sent the electronic call for help after the boat's engines were flooded in the Lombok Strait, leaving her, 11 friends and six crew helpless and without a radio or flares.
On board the beleaguered ship were 10 Britons, one Australian, one New Zealander and six Indonesian crew.
Fyfe's hurried message - "Call Falmouth Coastguard, we need help, SOS" - to her startled 23-year-old boyfriend sparked a rescue effort that stretched from Britain's coastguard to the Australian Foreign Office and finally to Indonesian authorities.
"A call from (Fyfe's boyfriend) Nick Hodgson raised the alarm with Thames Coastguard after he was sent a text message from his girlfriend," a British Coastguard spokesman said.
"Falmouth Coastguard contacted the girl on her mobile phone, but she was unable to give her precise location. The coastguard then tried to contact the Indonesian authorities, but asked the Australian Coastguard to relay the message to the Indonesian Search and Rescue Authority," he explained.
Ben Lewis, who was on board the 70-foot Ombak Indah boat with Fyfe, told BBC radio that the ship finally washed up in North Lombok, where it was towed to safety by rescue crews.
"We had no radio or flares and we couldn't make outgoing calls or send messages on the captain's mobile... as a last ditch attempt we got Rebecca's phone and tried to send a text message to her boyfriend," Lewis said.
"We received phone calls from Falmouth coastguard, which was a bit bizarre...We were told there were six planes and several boats looking for us," he said. The boat has since been towed to a small island just north of Lombok, a popular destination for backpackers and surfers.
"They are all safe and are in no difficulty whatsoever," a spokesman from the Foreign Office told Reuters.
The popularity of mobile phones and text messaging has soared in Britain, but the advance in communication technology has not been all positive. On Thursday a British judge imposed a five-year prison sentence on a truck driver who was busy messaging his girlfriend when he struck and killed a 24-year-old man.
