Tanzania: An American man has drowned while proposing to his girlfriend underwater during a “once-in-a-lifetime” trip to Tanzania.
Steven Weber and his girlfriend, Kenesha Antoine, were staying in a luxury submerged cabin at the Manta Resort, off Pemba Island.
Antoine filmed the moment Weber, wearing goggles and flippers, dived underwater to ask her to marry him.
In the video, Weber presses a hand-written note against the cabin window.
Antoine, confirming Mr Weber’s death in a Facebook post, said he “never emerged from those depths”.
The Manta Resort said Weber “tragically drowned while free diving alone outside the underwater room.”
Weber and Antoine had booked four nights at the resort’s underwater room, which lies approximately
250m from the shore. The water where the cabin is anchored is around 10m (32ft) deep.
On the third day of their stay, Weber, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, plunged into the water to hold his proposal note against the cabin’s glass window.
His note read: “I can’t hold my breath long enough to tell you everything I love about you. But…everything I love about you, I love more every day!”
Later in the video, Weber turns over the sheet of paper to reveal the proposal, before pulling an engagement ring from his shorts and swimming out of view.
Resort chief executive Matthew Saus said his staff responded to a “problem in the water”, but when they arrived “absolutely nothing could be done”.
In her Facebook post, Antoine said Weber “never got to hear her answer” to his proposal, which would have been “a million times, yes”.
“We never got to embrace and celebrate the beginning of the rest of our lives together, as the best day of our lives turned into the worst, in the cruellest twist of fate imaginable,” she wrote.
The US Department of State said it is aware of the death of a US citizen in Tanzania, in East Africa.
“We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,” a spokesperson said. “We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance.”