A woman from Grand Forks, B.C., who was lost at sea off the coast of Honduras for four days says she never gave up hope.

Tasha Brown was with eight friends on a day trip off the coast of Honduras last Saturday, but their nine-metre boat ran out of gas on their way back in.

"We have, like, no idea where we are, we're in the middle of the ocean, we drifted off in the middle of the night kinda thing," she told CBC News.

Brown and her friends survived on rainwater from an ocean storm and a sea bird they caught for food.

She says they ran out of water Wednesday morning.

"We were all just dying of thirst," she said. "There was a lot of praying going on, on that boat. We were all praying. I said a prayer, and I heard God say, ‘I'm going to give you one more chance and you just take it. You will know when you see it.’"

The group tried to flag down several passing ships to no avail. They were finally spotted about 100 kilometres from shore by a search plane on Wednesday.

"We were all screaming, yelling. I'm not going to lie, I actually cried a little bit."

A rescue helicopter was dispatched to bring Brown and her friends back to land.

Brown, a medic who was in Honduras on a working holiday, says she escaped with only a sunburn and mild dehydration.

She plans to return to B.C. in the next few days.