Washed Ashore: The Ultimate Survivors

It's a harrowing tale: Divers lost at sea in a remote part of Indonesia battled extreme temperatures, shark infested waters and crippling thirst -- not to mention the giant man-eating lizards.

Jim Manning and his girlfriend Charlotte Allin shared their extraordinary story of survival on a deserted Indonesian island exclusively on The Early Show.

Manning and Allin were among five divers - three from Britain and one each from France and Sweden - scuba diving in treacherous waters off eastern Indonesia on June 5. Following their dive in what is described as hanging gardens, the group surfaced and knew something was wrong.

"After we surfaced, we just signaled the dive boat like we normally do and wait for it to pick us up," Manning explained. "But on this occasion [the boat] was facing the other way -- it wasn't far away, but it was far enough that we couldn't shout to it. We started drifting straight away."

Allin says panic set in almost immediately. "We knew that we were in trouble."

"When we realized the boat probably wasn't going to pick us up, we started trying to swim to islands," says Manning. "Because of the way there's a sea in the north and an ocean in the south, there's so much current that when you get near the island you get washed away. You get a couple of hundred meters away and you get taken around it."

Exhaused, the group found a temporary resting place.

"We were all together just floating around and just out of nowhere -- I actually thought it was the fin of a shark or a dolphin or something -- and a log appeared big enough for us all to fit on," Allin said.

The group was able to rest on the log for awhile before spotting an island just before they drifted into the open ocean.

Victims of the currents, after more than 10 hours the group eventually made their way onto Rinca island -- and got an unexpected welcome.

"We realized the next day that Komodo dragons were there," Allin explains.
"[They're] about two meters, but they are quite solid creatures."

Already exhausted, the divers tried to drive the large creature away -- it was about six or seven feet long -- by throwing rocks and beating it with sticks.

"It went for Jim's wetsuit. It had the wetsuit in his mouth, which we needed," says Allin. The dragon came back two or three times after that.

Meanwhile, thinking they were on a different island, Manning set out for help.

"I left in the morning. We came up with an idea -- we thought were were on a different island basically, and Kath (dive instructor Kathleen Mitchinson) knowing the area said, 'Go over this hill and you'll find a patch where the fishermen dry their fish.' So I set off at first light, but I didn't see the guys until we were rescued the next day."

A study of the currents helped the dive boat find where the stranded divers ended up.

The group was rescued on June 7, as rescuers aboard one of 30 boats searching the waters spotted them waving frantically on the shore.

Did the divers ever feel that things wouldn't end well?

"At one point right at the beginning," Allin says. "But you make a decision; you're either going to fight for survival or you're going to give up. Anyone would have done the same in our situation -- kept going."