Gemma Collins enjoyed a wild ride across the sea in Greece on Tuesday after saying she was ‘lucky to have survived’ the storm in Sicily.
After jetting off to Crete this week, the former TOWIE star, 43, quoted Oasis saying, ‘you gotta roll with it’ and she brushed aside her recent boating experience.
Sharing an update to Instagram, she was pulled across the water with her partner Rami Hawash and his son.
Gemma captioned: ‘YOU GOTTA ROLL WITH IT when people say to me what am I gonna do I say well you gotta roll with it #lifemottostoliveby #oasis.’
Last week she said she was ‘very lucky to have survived’ after getting caught up in the terrifying storm that hit Sicily.
Gemma Collins enjoyed a wild ride across the sea in Greece on Tuesday after saying she was ‘lucky to have survived’ the storm in Sicily
The TV personality and her nephew Hayden, 15, were onboard a luxury ship when the Bayesian superyacht sank nearby, killing British tech billionaire Mike Lynch, his daughter, Hannah, and five others last week.
Gemma said she was left shaken after being stranded at sea for four hours near Porticello.
In an update shared to Instagram, she wrote: ‘Holiday update. My heartfelt condolences to the people involved in the tragic disaster at sea in Sicily.’
‘I was very lucky me and my nephew to have survived the storm at sea.’
‘I am shaken and returning to the UK tomorrow god was on our side today we was stuck for 4 hours can you imagine what was going through my mind. Thank you @bluediamondcruise for getting us back safely.’
Six passengers – including Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah – died alongside chef Recaldo Thomas after the British-flagged pleasure yacht capsized and came to rest on its side 164ft below in the early hours of last Monday.
It is believed the ship sank after its mast – one of tallest in the world at an enormous 246ft-high – snapped during the brutal incident and keeled over, taking the hull beyond the ‘down-flooding angle’, according to nautical experts.
Specialist divers involved in the search operation said on Tuesday that the £30million vessel, called the Bayesian, have come to rest on the seabed with ‘virtually everything intact’, with furniture blocking attempts to get inside.
After jetting off to Crete this week, the former TOWIE star, quoted Oasis saying, ‘you gotta roll with it’ and she brushed aside her recent boating experience
Gemma captioned: ‘YOU GOTTA ROLL WITH IT when people say to me what am I gonna do I say well you gotta roll with it #lifemottostoliveby #oasis’
It capsized after being hit by a waterspout at around 5am, with the captain of the doomed vessel saying ‘we didn’t see it coming’ after he and 15 others were rescued from the water.
Tornado-speed winds flipped the superyacht so quickly there was no time for those on board to raise the alarm or call for help before they were left swimming for their lives, with those who made it off stranded in the pitch black water as the storm raged around them.
Italian prosecutors held a press conference on Saturday, where it was revealed the victims were unable to escape as they may have been asleep.
They had scrambled to one side of the ship in search of air pockets in a desperate attempt for survival, with Hannah – who had won a place at the University of Oxford – dying alone in a cabin.
The victims’ bodies were tragically found in ‘tight spots’ with furniture on top of them and brought ashore one-by-one by dive teams last week, who had carried out 120 trips to the wreck on the seabed.
Fifteen of the 22 people on board the ship – including Hannah’s mother Angela Bacares, 57 – managed to escape in a liferaft.
Italian prosecutors have admitted they did not conduct alcohol and drug testing on the vessel’s crew – all but one of whom survived – because they needed treatment and were in shock. They have vowed to question the sailors intensively.
Last week she said she was ‘very lucky to have survived’ after getting caught up in the terrifying storm that hit Sicily
Six passengers – including Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah – died alongside chef Recaldo Thomas after the yacht capsized and came to rest on its side 164ft below (pictured in 2019)
Gemma and her nephew Hayden, 15, who were onboard another luxury ship, were left shaken after being stranded at sea for four hours
In an update, she wrote: ‘My heartfelt condolences to the people involved in the tragic disaster at sea in Sicily. ‘I was very lucky me and my nephew to have survived the storm at sea’
She shared a video showing how the boat’s staff helped Gemma and her nephew get back to shore safely
Lynch had invited family and friends onto the yacht to celebrate his ‘second life’ after being acquitted of all charges in a US fraud trial, and in an extraordinary twist his co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain – who was also cleared of the charges – has also died after being hit by a car while running in England over the weekend.
Inspector Marco Tilotta, leading the Palermo Fire Brigade’s diving unit, has likened the grim search operation to the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster in 2012 which claimed the lives of 33 people.
Eerily, the specialist cave divers called in for the search and rescue operation found ‘virtually everything intact’ on board, with little sign of damage, and ‘no rips in the side, no signs of impact,’ he told MailOnline.
The whirlwind has been defined as ‘extremely intense, sudden and very localized’, the Inspector told Il Messaggero.
Survivors of the tragedy were taken to various hospitals on the island of Sicily and began recounting their terrifying ordeal.
Among the 15 rescued was one-year-old baby Sofia, who was kept afloat by her mother, 36-year-old Charlotte Golunski.
Golunski, an Oxford graduate and senior associate at Mike’s company Invoke Capital, told of her fight to prevent her child from drowning.
‘For two seconds I lost my baby in the sea, then I immediately hugged her again in the fury of the waves,’ Ms Golunski said.
‘I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched up to keep her from drowning,’ she added.
Lynch was once hailed as the UK’s king of technology and is frequently referred to as ‘Britain’s Bill Gates’.
He was cleared in June of fraud and conspiracy charges in a US federal trial related to Hewlett Packard’s $11 billion takeover of his company, Autonomy Corp.
The yacht trip appeared to be something of a celebration after Lynch’s acquittal, with guests including members of his legal team as well as friends, family and witnesses who stood by Lynch throughout the trial.
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