Great British Baking Show 's Prue Leith Had to Be Rescued After Getting Lost at Sea: 'Absolute Misery'

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Prue Leith is opening up about a scary incident she had while on the Italian island of Sardinia.

According to The Great British Baking Show judge, 82, a relaxing day on the Mediterranean Sea quickly turned into "a whole day of absolute misery" after the engine on her motorboat gave out.

"I couldn't start it and the wind was getting up. I thought, 'This has the makings of a really bad novel," she explained to The Daily Mirror.

Leith added that the alarming situation worsened as she tried to flag people down.

"I'd be waving wildly, and they just waved back, thinking I was just being friendly," she told the outlet. After the long day at sea, it was a fisherman that finally came to the rescue, telling her: "You tourists, you risk your lives. You could have drifted all the way to Corsica!"

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She added: "And he just gave me absolutely blazes. And there was I… sunburnt," but says his comments were justified, telling the publication: "But he was quite right, and I was very foolish."

The judge did not say when the incident occurred. A representative for Leith did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

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Last month, the famed chef published an updated memoir titled, I'll Try Anything Once: My Life on a Plate about her experience on and off the television.

She first joined the hit cooking competition series as a judge in March 2017. On the show, home bakers from across Britain are put into a series of food challenges.

Speaking to PEOPLE last month about working as a judge on the beloved series, she said: "Of course, I have made thousands of desserts and lots of wedding cakes, and I'm so interested in the skills, but that's not what I would naturally do. I think they hired me because I have a great set of taste buds, not for my piping skills."

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The same month that she published her memoir, she also published her most recent cookbook,  Bliss on Toast, which features 75 recipes.

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She describes starting the writing process during the COVID lockdown, when she "realized very quickly that anything that tastes good the first time around tastes even better on toast the second time around."