I pushed the Captain away from my face, gagging and spitting out the foul water. I don’t want to even imagine he did mouth-to-mouth on me. I can’t get that out of my head and all the water out of my mouth. I rub my mouth with my sleeve and quickly sit up.
See fellas…brags the Captain. Never lost any one at sea. Hey, little lady you scared us going under like that…if it wasn’t for that flash going off and the wave pushing you up….well you’d have been a goner! I’m billing your company for the rescue…I could have lost my boat!
As he chewed me out for getting caught in the gyre eddy of trash, I continued to cough, bringing up foul tasting water and little particles of God knows what. Delirium was my state of mind and I struggled to piece together what had happen after I was hit in the head. His voice was a loud warbled sound track, as my mind raced to remember.
I do remember clutching the camera, so maybe my wrist was igniting the rapid flashing. Red blood from my head was seeping out from the tear in my hood. Tossed about like the garbage, I became weightless. Water gushed in my mouth from my snorkel and I ripped it off, trying to surface for air, not knowing which way to kick. Feeling the water inside me, unable to breathe, I descended into darkness illuminated only every few seconds with a bright flash of light.
My camera, where’s my camera I frantically exclaimed, interrupting…Relax lady…we got it! It was wrapped about your wrist so tight we hooked its strap and pulled you out with it…you could say it saved your life, with the light going off all the time. What I can’t figure is how you popped up….like being shot from a canon. I have always said…the sea’s like a woman…always tricking me just when I think I got her all figured out.
Scratching his head under his baseball cap, he hands me the camera. It’s all in one piece, the housing is bruised and battered but the machine inside survived my drowning. I clutch it like one would a newborn, holding it tight to my chest.
Knowing my work is safe and surviving almost dying, I roll over on my side and pull my legs up to my chest, shivering and thanking the photo gods for my life.
Let’s get her inside, the Captain orders the crew. They throw blankets on me, tuck them in tight, lift me up, bundle me and walk me inside the boat gently lowering me onto a bunk. A few minutes later, the two crew members who made that upchuck wager, raised my head, getting some warm soup into me. Murmuring my best thank you’s, I drifted away again, and this time I was safe, as I surrendered into what I thought would be peaceful slumber.
I am under water, dazed and disorientated, tossed around like the garbage. Water is in me and I gag. Pain in my head and blood, red liquid all around, illuminated by flashes of intense light. My eyes close slowly and falling deeper I weightlessly glide into the arms of an angel.
Her touch gentle and reassuring, she places an oval object first on my mouth, infusing me with warm liquid and it is as if I am inhaling a stream not of air but a warm purifying liquid, and I am breathing effortlessly in the water. She then places this round device just below my Adam’s apple, my eyes open to see a face and then a figure illuminated fully by the flashes of light. She speaks but I don’t understand her. I mutter where am I? She now answers in English in a soothing voice, and I clearly hear her reassuring voice.
Above me the surface thrashes about but below it is calmingly quiet and tranquil. She and I are suspended and transfixed as we gaze upon each other. I watch as she places her hands on my waist, lifting me upward, pushing me through the chaos overhead with unfathomable strength. A sudden thrust propels my whole body up, above the water. Air rushes into me, suffocating me instantly. I fall on the thrashing debris, floating lifelessly, while the strobe, strapped to my limp arm, flashes, illuminating my black body.
Gasping and screaming, I jerk upright in the bed. I clutch at my neck and unzip my wetsuit to find a small circular shell attached to my skin. I rip it off, realizing the creature from the deep put this on me. Holding it in my hand, examining it I think she gave me an underwater breathing device, and a way to communicate with her. She saved my life, then threw me back to be saved again.
I have proof. Photos could confirm all of this. Where is my damn camera. Bringing it up from the floor and onto the bed, I yank off the housing and hit playback. As I click each file, there it all is…the kayak hitting my head, me, stunned falling deep into the water, arms not my own reaching to touch me, holding me, a white thrust of water, my wet suited body rocking on the surface. The card holds the truth that someone, something lives beneath all the garbage of the gyre.
I have to go back in the water now!
Yelling at the Captain to turn the boat around. There is someone else in the water. I need to go find them.
The Capitan whispers to the crew, she is delusional. Lack of oxygen can create illusions, so we need to get her to a doctor asap!
Lady…it’s bad luck to go back after drowning…the sea is not so forgiving the second time.