The pair were stranded Monday on Samson Island, an uninhabited but no doubt lovely speck in the Isles of Scilly (search), semi-tropical islands lying in the Gulf Stream off Cornwall in southwestern England.
The culprit? Their tour-boat captain, who had simply miscounted the number of people getting back on board, reports The Independent of London.
Lacking a cell phone, the unnamed husband and wife were left to their own devices when they realized their ship had sailed. They scrawled "SOS" in giant letters in the sand, hoping low-flying aircraft might notice, but had no luck.
After an hour and a half of desperation, the pair noticed a "gig boat (search)" — a traditional Cornish longboat rowed by a team of paddlers — passing by, and began waving and shouting.
The women's rowing team, out on the water for practice, stopped by and took them aboard.
"Fortunately, this type of thing does not happen very often," the Scilly tourism officer said. "The last time was 30 years ago."
The tour-boat captain the next day visited the couple to apologize for the mistake.
"They were OK about it," he said.
I wouldn't kill the guy or anything, but I don't think I could manage to be "okay" about it.