The old, splintered wood creaked beneath my feet as I walked down the dock of the public marina. It was a sunny day, and there was a gentle breeze blowing this-way-and-that. I passed all the other boats on the marina before reaching my sailboat at the end of the dock. ‘Er sails are an off-white color, and she is made of that beautiful old-fashioned wood that makes you stop ‘n stare.
As I was examin’ ‘er to see if she had any cracks or splinters that I had to fix before our big trip, this young lad, probably about twenty years old, walks up to his new-fangled speedboat so he can untie it from the dock. He was wearin’ this preppy light blue polo shirt and shorts, which is just dumb if you’re goin’ boatin’ if you ask me. His boat was right next to mine, and boy, he was strugglin’ with that rope, and it was hilarious. Heck, I’m a 70 year old retired sailor, and I can untie my huge boat in only about five seconds. This guy had been standing here for about five minutes tugging and yankin’ at only one of the ropes, and I chuckled. I ignored the feller and kept checkin’ my vessel for bumps ‘n bruises. I saw a splinter in ‘er wood, so I pulled it off with a stubby finger nail and brushed away the area.
‘Er name is “Petunia,” after my late wife, and I loved that boat as if she were my own kid. About 30 years ago, Petunia died in a car accident. ‘Er skin was an olive color, and she had curly brown hair.  She bought that boat for me about ten years before the accident. I could probably be more careful with ‘er, but nothin’ real serious has happened yet that has damaged ‘er. After I thought that “Petunia” didn’t have any cracks, I walked back to my house to begin packin’ for my trip. The air felt humid, like a waterfall was sprayin’ me or somethin’. As I walked back, I began to think to myself whether “Petunia” would make the trip or not. This was going to be the longest voyage she ever had. I mean, three weeks is a really long time to be out on the ocean, and I had this feelin’ in my stomach that she wouldn’t make it.
I walked up the gravel driveway to my house and opened the wooden door that made an awful creaking noise. I opened my closet and grabbed the first duffel bag I saw. It was navy blue and had a picture of the American flag that had partially peeled off. I gave it a sniff. “Eh,” I muttered. “Could be worse.” I took old, faded t-shirts from my dresser and stuffed them in the bag. I put in some jeans as well. A draft blew in from the open window, making me shiver. I walked back downstairs and   went into the storage closet, which had an old, musty scent that made me wrinkle my nose. I kept extra food and water in there for my boat trips. I crammed as much of it as I could into about ten of those reusable shopping bags. I piled them all into the back of my black pickup truck and drove down the dirt path to the marina. It took me about an hour to pack all of the cases of water and food below deck of “Petunia.” I drove back to my house to get some rest before tomorrow.
I woke up at 5:30 a.m. the next morning. I got dressed and brushed my teeth as fast as a lion. I shut off the dim light in my room and shut all the windows. I shut and locked the door and practically skipped down the familiar path to the marina. The path had faded over the years, with all the tire tracks and foot prints packing down the dirt. I was really excited to start this trip, and it was a beautiful day. From what I could tell, the weather was going to be perfect over the next few weeks, and there was just the right amount wind for sailin’. As I walked down the dock where my boat was located, I watched the morinin’ sun rise up from out of the water like a flower. The sky was a blue-green color, and the sun was a bright orange. I knew that this was the perfect day to set sail. I approached “Petunia” and hopped right on. I checked around the boat to see if everything was in order before we left. Just as I was about to untie ‘er ropes from the dock, I heard a frantic voice call out my name.
“Sammie!” My good friend Joe yelled as he rushed down the dock. He seemed out of breath.
“What’s up Joe?”
“I knew you was… settin’ sail today and… I just wanted to… warn you about the weather conditions,” he struggled breathlessly to say. I laughed.
   “Joe, do you see how nice it is out? These are probably the best conditions to sail in.”
“It may look nice now, but there’s a storm brewin’ out there, and it ain’t no nice storm, either. I’m talkin’ thunderstorms, torrential rain, those crazy thirty foot waves…”
“Ok, well where did you get that nonsense from, the weather channels all said it would be beautiful for the next week.”
“I’m telling you, it’s the biggest storm off the coast of California that there’s been in years. They say it’s gonna be a category four hurricane.”
“Who says, Joe, who?”
“All the locals, you didn’t hear the word goin’ ‘round town?”
“No, and I don’t trust any of the locals around here anyway. I really have to get going.”
“You are seriously gonna go out in a hurricane? Sam, please just hold off the trip a few more days.”
“There is no hurricane, and I will not hold off the trip,” I sighed, already untying the ropes from the dock.
“Good luck then, and have fun out there.”
“You really need to stop listenin’ to those locals,” I shouted, already motoring away from the dock. I saw Joe shake his head, and then he walked away.
I used the motor to just get out of the harbor. The water was a sheet of glass. Once I got out into the Pacific, I raised my sail. Some people say that operatin’ a sailboat by yourself is hard, but the people who say that are just wimps. I am a very experienced sailor who doesn’t need anyone else telling them what to do. I set ‘er sail so she would carry me away from the California coast. I turned around and watched the land shrink behind me. The sun was now also behind me. It was very peaceful out on the water, which is why I love it so much. Once I thought that she was good to go, and that there was nothing in front of me to steer away from, I opened the door in the floor of the ship and walked down the stairs so I could get a soda. I opened it up and then walked back up to the main deck. I sat in the captain’s seat to drink it. I gazed out into the horizon. There was nothing ahead of me except the blue ocean, whose spray playfully splashed my face.
I sailed slowly in the mornin’, and then picked up speed in the afternoon. Now, I was traveling about 15 knots. I made a sandwich for lunch. After I ate, the sky got really cloudy and dark. The once bright sun disappeared behind a big dark cloud, and it got really windy and cold. I started to think that I should have listened to Joe. Just as he predicted, the skies opened up and it started to rain really hard, so hard that there was no clear ocean in front of me, but just a big, fuzzy blur of rain. I wondered if I should turn around and go back, but by now I was probably about 50 miles off shore, and I didn’t want to have to go back through it. I kept goin’, hopin’ that it would clear up. The waves were also really bad. One was so bad that I had to bail out the water, and I almost fell off because she tipped so hard to the right. The conditions continued all through the day, and when the sun set, they still continued. I couldn’t see two feet in front of me, even with the dim headlight. My heart pounded in my chest, and I was scared.
  The torrential downpours continued through midnight, and I had nothin’ to cover me but the frail, yellow rain coat that I always kept on the boat. The water trickled down my face and neck, making it even harder for me to see in the black night. I just kept sailin’ straight, having no idea where I was goin’. I wiped the water from my eyes. I hoped to be going to sleep at this hour, but I couldn’t, out of fear that she would crash into somethin’. I sat back in the captain’s chair, lettin’ the rain pelt my face. The storm seemed to be laughing at me. I dozed off, but was quickly jolted awake by somethin’ bumping the bottom of the boat, and then again, and again. I was thrown off my chair onto the wooden floor. When I used my hands to break my fall, I got a splinter in my palm. I pulled it out quickly.  I heard water rushin’ in below deck, and rushed down the stairs. I was up to my ankles in water.
My throat went dry as a chalkboard. “Petunia” was sinkin’. She was sinkin’ like a stone. I stood there in the water, which was risin’. The windows started cavin’ in, and water rushed through ‘em. I couldn’t move because of shock. I was lurched forward and fell on my stomach. Something else had crashed into ‘er above deck. I rushed back up the stairs to find that ‘er bow had crumpled like a piece of paper. Wood chips were everywhere. It was a rock. A huge ten foot rock loomed in front of me. This really shocked me. I fell back into the captain’s chair like a deflated balloon. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t motivate myself to get up and get off that boat. I knew I had to, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t leave Petunia for a second time. So I sat there. A mixture of tears and rain ran down my face. I put my head in my hands. “The captain must go down with his ship;” the thought repeated in my mind over and over again like a broken record. I sat there until the water was up to my waist, and suddenly, like a switch turnin’ on, I decided to get off that boat.
  I lifted up the seat in the stern of the boat and grabbed one of the neon orange life jackets. I put it around my neck and buckled the strap around my waist. I stood on the stern of the boat. I turned around, watching the water spill into the sides of Petunia. I turned around and forced myself to jump before she went down. So I did. I jumped. I hit the water, which was like a thousand knives cutting into me. I swam away as fast as I could, so that when she went under, she wouldn’t pull me with ‘er. I swam over to a smaller rock about twenty feet away, the suction already pulling at me a bit. I grabbed onto the rock and watched ‘er sink. The headlight provided a little light for me to watch, but once the whole bow was capsized, it blew out. It was pitch black now, and I couldn’t see anythin’.
  I forced myself not to panic. I told myself that I wasn’t going to die, but the thoughts just crept into my mind.  I came up with a plan: I would swim in a random direction, hoping that it was east, so I could make it back to shore. It’s not like in was gonna swim the whole way, because there was bound to be a helicopter that flew overhead at some point. I carried through with my plan for about two minutes, lazily floppin’ my arms to swim,  before fallin’ asleep. I bobbed in the middle of the ocean, dreaming of being saved.
It had stopped rainin’ when I woke up, but there was a thick fog resting on top of the ocean like a blanket. The sun wasn’t too high in the sky yet, so I guessed that it was about eight ‘o clock. I swam towards the sun, since I knew that the sun rises in the east. I went about a half a mile before I saw somethin’ that scared me outta my skins. A gray fin rose out of the water about ten meters from me. I didn’t move. Maybe if I didn’t move, it wouldn’t see me. By the size of that fin, I guessed it was a great white. It sliced through the ocean like a knife, and it was headed right towards me. It crossed my path this time. It was so close that I could touch it. I didn’t breath. Somethin’ slimy that felt like a tail ran across my leg. I was the most scared that I had ever been in my life right then. I kept my eyes closed for about two minutes. I didn’t feel anythin’ else, so I guessed that it gave up. I started swimmin’ again, hoping for a helicopter to come. I was so thirsty and hungry, but I kept swimmin’. I wasn’t going to give up.
Around noon, when the sun was high in the sky, the huge waves started again. The first one crashed on top of me, pushin’ me under the surface. I swallowed water, and the salty taste lingered in my mouth. I let the life jacket pull me up to the surface. Before I could think, another one knocked me back below into the blueness. I swallowed even more water, and also did about five somersaults. Something that I guessed was seaweed slipped down my throat. I didn’t know which way was up. I kicked and thrashed, but in the end, it was the life jacket that pulled me back up. I only coughed up a little of the water before I was pushed back below the surface. I didn’t even try this time. I closed my eyes. Somehow, even more water was forced down my throat. I bobbed back up to the surface. The waves all suddenly stopped. I coughed up as much water as I could, but it was useless. I couldn’t breathe because of all the water in my lungs. I seemed to manage a few short breaths. I closed my eyes. I was going to die. I started to unbuckle the life jacket so I could just put myself out of my misery. I hear Petunia’s voice, and she tells me to keep going. To keep swimming. So I open my eyes, buckle the life jacket back up, and do what Petunia tells me. I won’t give up now if it’s the last thing I do.
As if on cue, a helicopter flies overhead. At first, I just stare at it, and then I start splashing and flailin’ my arms around so it will see me. But it just keeps on goin’ as if it doesn’t. My stomach drops. I was so close. This was probably my only chance to survive before dying of thirst or somethin’. But after a minute, I look up at the sky and see it circle back. I flail my arms and scream and loud as I can, maybe even laughing a little bit, too. This was my one shot to live, and I wasn’t goin’ to waste it. It lowers, and hovers about 30 feet above the water and drops a ladder. I swam as fast as I could towards it, and grabbed onto it. It started to lift up. The wind blew my hair around everywhere. Once I got to the top, a man pulled me into the helicopter. “I gotcha,” he grunted. He unclipped my life jacket and handed me a towel and some water, which I had gulped down like I had just run a marathon. He shined a flashlight in my eyes and asked me questions, like how old I was and what the date was. I answered all the questions hazily and stared out onto the horizon. I knew that I was goin’ to be safe now, all thanks to Petunia.