“Great British Bake Off” judge and master chef Prue Leith found herself in a rather precarious position recently when her motorboat that was cruising the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Italy lost power and she was set adrift for an entire day.
“I couldn’t start it and the wind was getting up,” she told The Mirror. “I thought, ‘This has the makings of a really bad novel.’”
Several hours passed as her boat floated aimlessly at sea and although many other boats passed, her signaling to them didn’t elicit help but was instead misinterpreted as a friendly hello.
“People would pass, not close enough to shout to them but close enough to wave and I’d be waving wildly and they just waved back, thinking I was just being friendly,” she smiled.
Finally, a lone Sardinian fisherman saved the day. He, however, wasn’t very happy with her for placing herself in such a risky predicament.
“He was so angry with me. He said, ‘You tourists, you risk your lives. You could have drifted all the way to Corsica!’” she remembered. “And he just gave me absolutely blazes. And there was I… sunburnt. I was thirsty, I’d had a whole day of absolute misery. But he was quite right and I was very foolish.”
Leith can currently be seen in Seasons 8-12 of “The Great British Bake Off” on Netflix and “The Great American Baking Show Celebrity Holiday Special” on Ruko Channel. Come 2023, watch for “The Great American Bake Show” at a date later to be released.