Two female bodies were found crashing against the waves at Fomm ir-Riħ yesterday evening in what is believed to be a five-person maritime tragedy.
Armed Forces personnel discovered the bodies after scouring the Maltese coastline throughout the day, in search of five French nationals who had been missing for over 24 hours.
The bodies had not yet been officially identified by the time of going to print, although sources said it appeared extremely likely that they were those of Marie Grimaud, 38, and Sandrine Gaudet, 36.
Together with Philippe Grimaud, 41, Elias Chnouni, 49 and his son Eli, 14, they were last seen leaving Xlendi bay on a 12-foot boat at around midnight on Sunday, after a birthday celebration dinner involving alcohol.
The 60-foot cabin cruiser they were holidaying on, the El Pirata, was anchored at Dwejra.
The boat never made it back to the cabin cruiser, prompting its Spanish skipper to search nearby waters for the five before alerting Victoria police on Monday afternoon.
An intensive search and rescue operation spanning a 1,000-nautical-mile area and involving Maltese, Italian and American patrol aircraft – the latter two flew from Sicily – yielded little, until two lifeless bodies were sighted off Malta’s southern coast in the late afternoon.
The corpses were collected and airlifted to dry land by Armed Forces search and rescue personnel.
A spokesman for the AFM confirmed that the 12-foot boat the French tourists were last seen on was subsequently also discovered in the Fomm ir-Riħ area, capsized, with a floating life jacket nearby.
Search parties were called off as darkness descended and AFM personnel were scheduled to resume searching for the three people still missing early this morning.
The Belgian-registered El Pirata anchored in Dwejra bay on Sunday afternoon as part of what was meant to be an idyllic sunshine holiday for the group.
That evening, they decided to head towards Xlendi bay using the yacht’s 12-foot tender, for what sources said was a birthday celebration.
There, they celebrated Mr Chnouni’s 49th birthday at The Boat House restaurant, drinking Maltese Xampanja Cassar de Malte and digging into a surprise birthday cake prepared for them by restaurant staff, before embarking on the journey back to their Dwejra-anchored boat.
A spokesman at the Malta Meteorological Office in Luqa confirmed that weather conditions were far from ideal that night, with moderate to rough seas and northwesterly winds reaching force six.
Fishermen at Ġnejna Bay further confirmed the poor weather. “The wind turned quite suddenly that night,” one told Times of Malta.
“In a small boat and without the proper rowing experience, you’d be in trouble.”