It was a beautiful, bright sunny day. The water reflected the sky above; a deep blue that would make you wonder in awe how it got that brilliant color tone. Today, in fact, was the most anticipated part of my expedition out to Hawaii. Today was the day that I would go scuba diving with one of the most renowned marine biologists! I knew that I was going to walk away with a story to tell. What I didn’t know was just how perilous and intriguing that story would be…

The beginning to this adventure was one of the finest times of my life. It was laid back! Smooth sailing if I do say so myself. The captain and I arrived early so we were lightening the dissonant mood by creating some jokes that would make each of our bellies jiggle. Then Jim came. I greeted him with a hearty handshake and he replied with an outrageous, yet funny fact about the octopus. I knew then and there that this trip was going to be delightful. We boarded the boat and set off for Mystic Island, a remote island with thousands of marine species and land animals as well.

We dove into the cool water. Immediately I was swarmed with fish, barnacles, star fish, seahorses, and seaweed. I was amazed by the dazzling colors that surrounded me. Hundreds of illuminating blues, royal reds, and deep blacks. It was a real life Picasso picture right before my eyes. The water was a crystal clear blue and we could see far out into the blue water. The area we were swimming in was filled with little taverns and coves that Jim and I would be exploring. Oh it was quite a sight to see.

We just began our dive when I heard a weird moaning noise. I just pushed it to the back of my mind because it really didn’t bother me. We were about twenty feet down when I heard it again. This time the noise was much louder, as if it was closer. I looked up and froze. I was floating in my own fear. Upon us sneaked up a whale. It was an unusually horrifying sight to gaze upon one so close. I tapped Jim on the shoulder and he had almost the same reaction. He looked at me with a puzzled face wondering what to do with our large predicament. They are gentle creatures really but can be dangerous in a close proximity and we didn’t want to scare it. What really dampened our extremely small hopes of getting out safely was when a large school of krill swam past the hole midway between us and the whale. Everything turned into chaos. The whale started splashing around and we had no way to get back to the boat that was at the surface whiles away. We were stunned, spun about, and smashed against rocks and through caves. Somehow we ended up on a small island. This was when the actual adventure began.

I was revived by chocking on the distasteful salt water. I was perfectly fine, no scratches, nothing hurt. I was shocked because we were just slammed into every living thing in that tiny space. I went to go check on Jim’s condition. He too was perfectly fine. It was a miracle. I woke him up and we went through our predicament. We came up with: we’re stranded on an island who knows where; we have little to no food, no compass, and no shelter. We looked at our oxygen tanks and realized we had about two days worth of swimming until we were in ever deeper trouble. We proposed a plan to escape the hostile environment we were put into. For today we would scavenge this blasted island for anything useful to us. Try to make a signal to alert any over passing planes. Tomorrow we would attempt to venture back to our scuba area.

The first day went no where planning wise. We foraged for anything but found nothing. All we could find were crabs and dead drift wood. We made the best out of those items. The marine biologist used his keen skills and pulled out the edible crab meat while I made the drift wood into little rafts that we could use. No planes flew above us so our signal idea fell apart quickly. Dusk rapidly came upon us so we went to sleep waiting for a promising next day.

The next day was great. If you consider a freezing down-poor and crashing wave’s great then it was your day. We set out anyways on the makeshift raft I built out of the drift wood. That idea didn’t exactly work too well. We were tossed and slammed and thrown brutally against rocks. Then a wave came and that was the end of our raft and the wave plummeted and crashed against us sending us flying into the deep ocean. The water churned and rocked us back and forth so bad that we had to embrace each other just to stay together. Once again we ended up stranded on an island out at sea.

A hazy mist gave way to a blindingly bright sun the next morning. We slowly awoke and to our surprise we spotted an island with a port and highways off in the distance. We thought that we were hallucinating due to the lack of food. Our consciences told us something different though. It spoke loud and clear. It bellowed out to us, “go to the island. You will find good there”! With a lot of reasoning we decided on following our consciences prophecy. We put on our gear and head into the cool water.

Unlike last time the water was foggy, there was no marine life visible, and it was eerily quiet. We swam at a quick pace towards the island stopping only for breathe and to make sure we were going in the right direction. We resumed our swim. I looked down into the deep and saw something blue dart past. It worried me. I didn’t want another attack. There it was again. I yanked on Jims arm and pointed. We resurfaced. He had a petrified look on his face. He told me that we were in a barracuda breeding hot spot. This scared me because they are some of the fiercest fish in the sea. We swam fast and stiff, making no sudden movements at all. As we finally passed the cloudy area everything brightened up! We were now so close to the island that we could smell the street vendors cooking up their hot dogs and other appetizing foods. That smell drove us crazy and made us swim at lightning speed to reach shore.

We finally made it! It felt so relieving to be at home on the shore. I thanked Jim for the crazy time and walked away reminiscing the adventure I had just taken. I was glad I had gone but now I realize I never want to go back out to sea to swim. What was supposed to be a lackadaisical day spotting various fish turned into the struggle of a lifetime. I appreciate now how people survive unnatural mishaps. I grabbed a hot dog from the nearest vendor and walked home with all of that in mind.