By Ben Doherty
Katie Pritchard had a bad feeling about the boat trip, about the whole full moon party, from the start.
"We all had such a bad gut feeling about it. All four of us were sitting on the beach in Koh Samui saying: 'Maybe we shouldn't go.' It just wasn't sounding right.''
Ms Pritchard, 18, and her three friends from the C3 Church Sydney at Oxford Falls - Vanessa Kelly, 19, Natalie Hensby, 19, and Chloe Bucknell, 20 - were a week into their first trip overseas, a fortnight-long Thailand holiday.
She says the full moon party, famed for its dancing, drinking and drugs, was not really their scene. "We're not really go-hard party-goers … I was the one saying, 'We've paid 600 baht, we may as well go.' But none of us really felt right about it."
Lucky to be alive ... Katie Pritchard (left), Chloe Bucknell (top) and Vanessa Kelly.
Halfway between the two tourist islands of Koh Samui and Koh Pha Ngan, their boat collided head-on with another, pitching all on board into the sea. Forty-two passengers were injured, including seven Australians. No one was killed.
Ms Pritchard remembers only fragments of the night. She says she remembers clambering with her friends on to the small wooden speedboat, and racing to sit at the front for the short hop to the neighbouring party island.
Most of the passengers eschewed their life jackets, instead holding them above their heads to shelter themselves from light rain.
They were singing and dancing when they saw a shadow approaching.
"We were all screaming, 'It's another boat coming', and the next thing I remember is we were just bracing. I grabbed someone, I was down on the bottom of the boat, and the next thing I remember is just hitting black.
"The next thing I remember is being underwater with bits of wood and not being able to get up and thinking I was going to die, that I was going to drown."
Ms Pritchard recalls being dragged from the water on to another boat, before passing out again and waking in hospital unable to find her friends, or anyone who could tell her they were alive.
She says she is amazed no one was killed. The women have not yet seen each other since the crash, but have made videos telling each other they are OK and that they will catch up soon.
All four are expected to fully recover from their injuries, but it may be several weeks before some are able to travel home to Australia.
Ms Hensby and Ms Kelly have punctured lungs and Ms Bucknell has a broken leg and deep gashes to her face.
Thai police said yesterday they were conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash and have promised to interview the skippers of both boats. The short stretch of sea between the two tourist islands, which is a shallow body of water, is notorious for dangerous and unregulated boating.
In 2005 a similar collision killed 18 people, including two Australians, and party-goers regularly fill online forums with tales of near-misses, overcrowded and under-lit boats, filled with intoxicated revellers. Another Australian reveller at Saturday's party, who gave his name as James, said he was not surprised there was a crash.
"The skippers seemed in a rush to make as many trips as possible, cramming as many people as they could on each boat.
''There were hundreds of people on the piers waiting for boats. [It was] a complete nightmare. ''The speedboats also had very little signal lights as they made the trips - just one small flashing beacon."