Six hours after we last saw Brad with the engagement ring, Summer Bay is looking a very different place. As Leah, Irene and Martha take down decorations in the Surf Club, Sally arrives in an unrecognisable state: "I can't do anything until I know Brad's alright. He's out there, and he's thinking that I don't want him." As we flash back in time to six hours earlier, all becomes clear Brad's busy making the finishing touches to a day he's planned to the tiniest detail, and it's clear that nothing is going to get in his way not even the potentially earth-shattering news about his career. But if Sally is surprised by his reaction to the Department's decision, it's nothing compared to the shock shes about to receive. "Will you marry me?" Brad whispers in her ear, before rushing off to grab the champagne. He clearly hasn't noticed she hasnt answered him yet; when she does, it's not quite what he was expecting. "Are you sure that this is something we should be doing right now?" As the extravagant celebrations he's already planned only just begin to dawn on him as having been a little premature, Brad does his best to convince Sally that her being Principal won't affect their relationship but, for her, it's too early to be making any big decisions. "If you're telling me that I have to decide right here, right now, then I'm sorry, but the answer is 'no'." Having left Sally with surprise guest Pippa, Brad joins the guys Alf, Dan, Jack and Ric at the wharf to contemplate how he could have judged the situation so badly, prompting a consolatory fishing trip that's destined to end in disaster. The guys get caught in a freak storm, and no contact has been made since their first distress call.
If only...
While Sally longs for the opportunity to tell Brad she loves him, a devastated Martha, too, is living in regret. As she clutches the divorce papers, she thinks back to seven hours previously
In an effort to patch things up with Jack, Martha goes to see him at the police station to tell him that she hadn't wanted to sign the divorce papers. But, as usual, the hapless pair get their wires crossed and end up bickering over the dividing of their possessions.
It's only when one of Jack's colleagues puts her straight that Martha realises Jack must feel the same way only it's too late.
Martha rushes to the wharf to stop Jack leaving, but the boat's already too far out to sea Will she get the chance to tell him how she feels?
Unhappy anniversary As Leah goes to make a call to the rescue team to check on the fates of the missing men, she's distracted by a gift in her bag. It's from Dan.
To understand more, we flash back twelve hours to see her working in the diner kitchen. Leah is drawn to a date marked on the calendar (marked with a red heart, no less) and realises that she's forgotten her anniversary.
Little does she know that Dan has defied all stereotypes and is, at the very moment she is panicking over how to cover her mistake, busy writing a card to go with the gift hes bought her. And he's so much of a romantic that when she confesses to forgetting what day it is, he says he's done the same before waiting until she's not looking to slip the gift into her bag.
"Dan said he didn't remember, but he did," she cries, as Pippa desperately tries to console her not to mention Summer Bay's other women. But it looks that Sally's outburst that their men aren't coming back is in danger of coming true.
"They said they saw four men around the boat waving for dear life as they flew over," Colleen says, as she bursts into the diner. A moment of realisation sweeps the room, before Martha goes ahead and speaks for everyone: "But there's five of them..."
Tagged in Home And Away