LUKE Day, a teacher, drowned after sacrificing himself to save the life of his bride when a violent storm capsized their boat while they were on honeymoon in Egypt. Mr Day, 31, and his wife Dr Sophie Nicholson-Cole were sheltering under the foredeck of a traditional felucca sailing boat after the freak storm blew up at night. The boat quickly became swamped with water due to the heavy rain and waves whipped up by gale-force winds on the River Nile at Aswan. Mr Day who was a French teacher at Costessey High School near Norwich, Norfolk, pushed his wife and two other holidaymakers to safety out of a hatch on the deck. He then tried to save himself and became trapped and drowned as the wooden boat capsized at its mooring in the early hours of Monday. Dr Nicholson-Cole, 31, a research scientist and climate change expert, spent three hours in the muddy water, repeatedly diving down to try and reach him before his body was recovered. Her father David Nicholson-Cole said: Luke was helping Sophie and everyone else out of the hatch as the boat started to go down. He was the last to try and get out and unfortunately he didnt make it. He basically sacrificed himself to save everyone else including my daughter. It was a completely selfless act and was entirely in character. They were a golden couple and were just so in love. She was a beautiful girl and he was handsome and caring. The couple married last April and began an extended honeymoon in August. Tg when they spent nearly five months cycling 2,800 miles by tandem and conventional cycles across Europe to Istanbul. Tg They returned home for Christmas and then decided to complete their honeymoon by leaving for a month long sight-seeing tour of Egypt on New Years Day. The couple travelled around by bus and had booked themselves on a two day cruise on a 35 foot long felucca boat from Aswan to Luxor which was due to start on Monday. Mr Nicholson-Cole of Nottingham said: The boats are very basic and you sleep and eat on a deck. Sailing on them is a fantastic experience which hundreds of people do in complete safety every year. They were sleeping on the boat on the Sunday night before their cruise started when his freak storm blew up and caused incredible damage in an area where it hardly ever rains. It was like an extraordinary twister which came out of the desert at about 3am. It was so severed that it destroyed dozens of houses. They were sheltering under the foredeck while they were battered with this torrential rain which flattened the Nile. Within two minutes the water went from being completely flat to having metre-high waves which started swamping these wooden boats. They had to scramble out of the hatch. Luke was helping everyone - but he just didnt make it. There would have been ropes and obstacles on the boat and he must have got caught up as it went under. The two other holidaymakers saved by Mr Day, a teacher for six years, are believed to have been from India and Canada. Mr Nicholson-Cole said: Sophie spent three hours in the water trying to get him out and ended up bedraggled and covered in mud. She kept on gulping down the toxic water and it made her ill Many people were just standing around like spectators as she was in the water. They were staring at this poor girl weeping over her husbands body after he was dragged out and brought ashore. Mr Nicholson-Cole said his daughter was given a lift to a local hotel by an ambulance, but found it had no power so she could not contact anyone. She was still bedraggled and covered in mud when she went to try and get help from two cruise ships, but was turned away. Finally some UK passengers on a third boat took pity on her and allowed her to make calls and wash in their cabin. Mr Nicholson-Cole added: Everything my daughter and husband had was lost during the night - but during the day their passports, money, bags, camera and clothes were washed up on the shore and recovered by local people who handed them in. These were people who had nothing and their own houses had been destroyed - but they still wanted to hand in these possessions. It was incredibly kind. In contrast the Egyptian police treated Sophie disgracefully. They questioned her at length afterwards and treated her as if she had murdered him. Mr Nicholson-Cole said his daughter had been left traumatised and devastated by her husbands death and had since returned to the UK. He praised the BMI flight crew who moved her into a first class seat because she was so upset as she flew back to Britain alone. Mr Day was acting head of languages at 980-pupil Costessey High School and ran the schools French exchange programme to Foix. He was due to return to the school next month after being given secondment for his extended honeymoon. His wife was a research associate at the School of Environmental Studies at the University of East Anglia where she did a phd on communicating climate change and co-wrote a book about how small islands can survive global warming She left the university in October 2008 and became a climate change and coastal erosion researcher for the global engineering company WS Atkins. She had been promised her job back on her return. Philip May, Costessey High School headteacher, said Mr Day had taught at the school for four years. He added: He was charming, witty, enthusiastic and very, very friendly. He came to us as a good teacher and was becoming better. He was a lively teacher who managed his classes well. The kids loved him. He was always hard-working and enthusiastic. His death is a big loss to school. It is a terrible time. Some of the pupils burst into tears when we told them that he had died. -Tg