Myda Egrmajer, 24, says she used a flare gun to scare off attackers who shot and killed her father on his boat in Honduras. (Facebook)

A Canadian woman who says she used a flare gun to scare off attackers who shot and killed her father on his boat in Honduras is back in Ontario, her relatives say.

Myda Egrmajer, 24, arrived in Toronto on Sunday and is now on her way to Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario with her mother and brother, said her aunt Merrillynn Wilson, who lives in Mahone Bay, N.S.

Egrmajer seems to be holding up after the ordeal, said Wilson.

Milan Egrmajer, 55, of Ottawa was killed after gunmen boarded his sailboat Thursday night. A semi-retired consulting engineer, he had left on his trip from Port Dalhousie, Ont., in 2008. In November, Myda joined him in the Caribbean.

Due to bad weather, the two were in a lagoon near an island about 30 kilometres north of the Honduran coast, off the port community of Tela, when their boat was swarmed by gunmen who tried to rob them.

Myda used a flare gun to scare off the assailants, then remained on the sailboat for several hours until people on another boat arrived to help her. Her father was shot four times in the chest and abdomen.

Physically unharmed but traumatized, Myda was later taken to Belize.

Heather Marshall, a friend of Milan Egrmajer, said she was shocked at the news of his death.

Milan Egrmajer, 55, of Ottawa was killed after gunmen boarded his sailboat Thursday night off the coast of Honduras. (Facebook)

"It's absolutely unbelievable that something like this can happen. All weekend we kept saying this happens in the movies or in fiction. You just never expect this to happen to anyone you know, she said.

"But clearly these things do happen. It's a terrible loss, but it's so hard to grasp because it doesn't seem real."

There's no consolation, Marshall said.

"At least he died doing something he loved with someone he really loved — his daughter."