The bodies of three of the five French tourists who were lost at sea off Gozo last Sunday are expected to be repatriated this week, according to a French Embassy spokesman.

Until you see the body you keep a little space in your mind for hope

Marie Grimaud, 38, Sandrine Godet, 36, and her husband Elias Chmouni died after a celebratory dinner to mark his 49th birthday at a restaurant in Xlendi Bay.

The embassy’s deputy chief of mission, Frédéric Depétris, told The Sunday Times of Malta that at this stage the families of the deceased were not planning to come to Malta.

The three, who were formally identified by police through their ID documents, will be buried in the Parisian region, while one family will have a burial in Bordeaux.

An extensive air search by the Armed Forces of Malta continues for Mr Chmouni’s 14-year-old son Dani and Philippe Grimaud, 41, who remain missing one week on.

Mr Depétris said: “We are doing what we can to keep the families updated with the help of the police and the army... It is very hard to deal with the situation when two bodies remain missing.”

Asked if the families had lost all hope of finding Dani and Mr Grimaud alive, Mr Depétris said: “Until you see the body you keep a little space in your mind for hope. As days pass though, hope starts to diminish.”

An AFM spokesman said hope of finding the two alive was slim but the army was making every effort to find them and the search will continue indefinitely.

The battered bodies of Ms Godet and Ms Grimaud were found in Fomm ir-Riħ, while that of Mr Chmouni was discovered drifting close to Comino.

The army has also fished out two other life jackets, but the spokesman said it had yet to establish whether these belonged to Dani and Mr Grimaud, or if there were extra life jackets on board the small boat the group used to shuttle between their cabin cruiser anchored at Dwejra and the restaurant.

If the bodies drowned since their disappearance on Sunday there is a chance the corpses will resurface after three days; if not they may never be found.

This incident has revived terrible memories for Simon Bugeja, who survived a tragedy in 2008 after his fishing trawler, Simshar, was engulfed in flames while out of sea.

Mr Bugeja was rescued after seven days at sea with no water or food, battling the scorching sun by day and freezing temperatures at night.

He and his crew had survived the explosion and hung on to makeshift rafts made from wreck’s debris. Somali Abdulrahman Gedi was the first to die, followed by Noel Carabott, 33; Mr Bugeja’s father, 61-year-old Karmenu; and Simon’s son, 11-year-old Theo, whose body was never found.

“My heart goes out to the families of these French tourists... It’s hard to find words that can comfort them except to urge them to be brave and to trust in the Lord,” Mr Bugeja said when contacted yesterday.

My heart goes out to the families of these French tourists

The two French couples, accompanied by Mr Chmouni’s son from a previous marriage, had sailed to Malta from Tunisia on the El Pirata cabin cruiser, skippered Spanish Juan Carlos Montes.

Mr Montes told Times of Malta that when the cabin cruiser anchored in Dwejra Bay last Sunday at noon the weather was “perfect”.

That evening Mr Chmouni decided to celebrate his 49th birthday with dinner in a restaurant at Xlendi Bay, close to Dwejra. Mr Montes, 65, from Palma, suggested they berth the El Pirata at Mġarr Harbour and then catch a taxi to a restaurant.

“But he did not want to move the yacht, preferring to take the small boat instead to go to shore,” said Mr Montes. “He insisted I join them but I refused – I could not leave the cruiser unattended, out of sight.”

Armed with life jackets and a lantern, the five set off towards land in a small 50-horsepower tender at about 8pm, and according to the skipper “the sea was unbelievably calm at that time”.

The group celebrated at The Boat House restaurant, drinking Maltese Xampanja Cassar de Malte and enjoying a surprise birthday cake prepared for them by restaurant staff, before embarking on the journey back to their Dwejra-anchored boat at about midnight.

By then the wind had changed, reaching force six, whipping the rocks with huge waves. Witnesses said it took the group of five a full 15 minutes to board the small swaying boat after dinner. They were never seen again.

This case has also brought back memories of the tragedy of celebrated French photographer Stephanie Poitrat, 30, whose badly decomposed, bloated body surfaced in Malta six months after she went missing in the south of France in November 1999.

The body of the professional diving instructor had travelled 600 nautical miles across the Mediterranean and was retrieved off Xgħajra. She had been identified by a bracelet inscribed with the name Stephanie.

Timeline

Sunday, May 5, at 7pm. Elias Chmouni personally books a table for six at The Boat House restaurant in Xlendi before returning to the cabin cruiser to shower.

8pm. The skipper decides not to join his friends for dinner, so the group of five head off on a small flat-bottomed boat – more suited for sheltered waters such as ports – for dinner at Xlendi Bay.

Midnight. After a celebratory dinner, the tourists are undeterred by the strong winds and keen to head ‘home’ to their cabin cruiser, board the boat. National Fisheries Cooperative general secretary Raymond Bugeja said once the four-metre boat left the sheltered Xlendi Bay, the sea would have been 10 times rougher, exposing the group to the open seas.

Midnight to 5pm. The skipper is at the helm of the cabin cruiser to keep it from crashing against the rocks in Dwejra. He could not let go to call his friends, but he was convinced that in such weather, Mr Chmouni, who was experienced in seafaring, would spend the night on land.

Monday, May 6, at 7am. At dawn, when he felt he had enough light, the skipper sought the safety of Mġarr and started calling Mr Chmouni. He phoned the Gozo Marina and asked them to inform Mr Chmouni, should he call, that the El Pirata was in Mġarr.

4.30pm. Seeing that Mr Chmouni had still not returned, he filed a report with the police that five people were missing. The search started soon after.