Div­er Christo­pher Bu­gros is cred­it­ing di­vine in­ter­ven­tion for his abil­i­ty to swim 44 miles to safe­ty.

“It was me and God out there alone... I nev­er stopped pray­ing. I had to think, think fast and have no fear,” Bu­gros said at his Mar­aval home.

“There was no time to rest...I don’t know where my strength came from but I knew I had to reach home to my fam­i­ly,” he added.

Last evening at his home among the many fam­i­ly, friends and well wish­es were his two div­ing part­ners - An­tho­ny Gra­ham, 30 and Bran­don Ser­rette, 26, who were with him on Wednes­day when a cur­rent swept him miles away from them.

Gra­ham, a sol­dier, said it was hard for him to leave his friend be­hind but know­ing Bu­gros’ style, tech­nique and sur­vival in­stincts knew in his heart that he would be ok.

“I be­lieve in mir­a­cles and that there is a God above.”

“To know that Christo­pher got swept away right un­der our nose was a harsh re­al­i­ty when it hit. We had to leave for gas. I know it would have been point­less be­cause I know the cur­rent would have tak­en him far but how far and where, “ Gra­ham said.

He said when they re­turned on land they re­mained rest­less on the beach for the whole night and in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Coast Guard, nev­er los­ing hope.

Ser­rette de­scribed his ex­pe­ri­ence as the worst ever, “one that I will nev­er for­get. I’m still shak­en up.”

Bu­gros, while keep­ing on the look­out for sharks nev­er gave up.

“I had my (fish­ing) gun so I was pre­pared for the sharks. But by swim­ming, I had to be­gin dump­ing. First my weights... I used out the tank then took apart my wet suit and used it with the tank as a float...even­tu­al­ly I had to dump that too but I cut a reg­u­la­tor hose and put it in my mouth to help me breathe and with that I could have rest my head down at times with­out get­ting wa­ter in the hose.”

“I re­mem­bered touch­ing the shore. As I came out of the wa­ter my legs col­lapsed on me. I slept on logs un­til 5.30 am then made my way to log­gers in a dis­tance for help,” he added.

Bur­gos fa­ther, An­tho­ny, 69, said he gave his son a one per cent chance of sur­vival chance.

“I knew if he did what I taught him to do that that one per cent would have turned to 100 per cent. I’m proud to­day,” he said.

An­tho­ny said 45 years ago he was in a sim­i­lar po­si­tion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go where he was lost at sea dur­ing a div­ing ex­pe­di­tion but was found in two hours.

An­tho­ny now promis­es to de­sign a sur­vival pro­gramme with im­proved equip­ment, lights, vest and buoys for divers.

Bu­gros said he will go back in­to the ocean maybe about in one month’s time to­geth­er with Gra­ham and Ser­rette.

How­ev­er, his fa­ther said his son along with the en­tire fam­i­ly was in dire need for pro­fes­sion­al coun­selling.

“Christo­pher looks strong but he’s men­tal­ly trau­ma­tised and I’m try­ing to start a fund to help with coun­selling. He needs it.”

Bu­gros on Wednes­day sur­vived strong cur­rents as he mirac­u­lous­ly swam 44 miles to land af­ter drift­ing out to the far east­ern coast of Trinidad over an es­ti­mat­ed 16-hour pe­ri­od dur­ing one of his reg­u­lar div­ing ex­pe­di­tions.

Bu­gros was part of a group of four divers who left their re­spec­tive homes at about 3 am on Wednes­day to go div­ing off Ba­lan­dra.

At about 9 am while he and two oth­er divers were in the deep wa­ters a 350-pound bull shark wad­ed pass them.

The trio tried to es­cape. Two of them man­aged to sur­face, how­ev­er, Bu­gros got in­to dif­fi­cul­ty and was swept away about 100 feet away from the boat by strong un­der­cur­rents.