What began as a fun family outing has ended as an epic story of survival for an Australian family.
The family of 14 people escaped from their charter boat after it burst into flames 12 kilometres off the Queensland coast yesterday morning, Nine News reports.
The group embarked on their journey on Friday afternoon on a weekend fishing trip off Masthead Island.
They began heading back yesterday morning, the boat catching fire about 12km off the Gladstone Coast near Rock Cod Shoal - where their only option was to climb onto a tiny tender boat.
However, the boat was too small to hold their weight and began to sink.
The group clung to the upturned boat for an hour until a rescue boat arrived.
"We just had to hit survival mode, bloody get off the boat as quick as we could," skipper Troy Alexander said.
His son tried to bail water out with just a two-litre ice cream container.
"(It) didn't do much though, (I was) going as fast as I could but just too much water coming in," he said.
Emergency services said there were no injuries, except for one in the group who was flown to Gladstone Hospital suffering from exhaustion and hypothermia.
The members of the group were all wearing life jackets.
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