Adrift | 4 July 2026

The motor sputtered and finally died.  I looked around and all I saw was the vast expanse of the ocean.  On the horizon, I could see the outer edge of an approaching storm.

BNR Response

Well, shit.  I flicked the gas gauge – willing the needle to jump in response and…yep.  Clark had not refueled me as I had asked.  I sat on the bobbing wave runner and surveyed my circumstances: the surfer I had towed out had caught his wave and was making his way in.  The waves rose and fell around me, swelling to cover my view of the cliff face and falling to reveal that I was ebbing further and further out to sea.

I took in a deep breath, feeling my chest constricted by the tight neoprene, and let out a deep sigh.  I wondered how long it would take Scotty to pull the boat around and tow me in.  I looked at my watch – it was only seven.  If it weren’t for the lightning now appearing in the distance, I would be golden.

I watched a pod of dolphins weave through some barrels.  Another big flash of lightning striped the sky, closer this time.  Then another.  The bolts growing in frequency.

I heard the fog horn.

I wasn’t super stressed about the situation, this kind of thing happened not infrequently.  Until, that is, I felt a sleeper wave latch on the bottom of my Sea-Doo and pull me out even further.  I reached for my walkie and tried to call Garrett, as he was my buddy tugger, but I was out of range.  Thunder clapped overhead.  I wasn’t happy.

Displeasure sank into something else as the sun dipped below the horizon and the storm blackened the skies.  As a lifelong surfer, raised on a treacherous stretch of coast in NorCal, it seemed the ocean was always producing new ways to threaten our mortality.  Last week Don Pemberton pulled a baby Great White with his fishing net; damn thing nearly ate his rig.  Last month we just did our annual paddle out in memoriam of all the surfers killed either by Mavericks’ break or by the coral underneath.

As a carousel of memories of near death and deadly incidents ran before my eyes, a rogue wave knocked me off my jet ski and plunged me into salty waters.  I was caught unawares, fucking rookie move, and had the wind totally knocked out of me – the most dangerous accidents start like this.  Having no air in my lungs to buoy me, I grappled with the slippery underside of the vessel to no avail.  After what felt like an eternity, I could feel my vocal chords spasm to protect me from breathing in any more water.  My time was running out.

At last, I somehow managed to pull myself back on my wave runner, I coughed up pink fluid and maneuvered myself back into the saddle, disoriented and with blurred vision.  When things came back into focus, I realized I had bobbed near some kind of an offshore rock formation.  The waves coaxed me nearer and I entered into a cave that appeared to have a glow emanating from it.  As I entered the cavern, the waters grew gentler and warm, and a beautiful reflection of the surf seemed to fluoresce on the ceiling of this grotto.  It must be some lesser-known version of Teach’s Light, I thought to myself, marveling at the wonderful spectacle of blues, greens, and violets that undulated above me.  I felt my wave runner hit sand and I was able to walk onto a sandbar.  I pulled my craft fully onto it as well – I did a full circle, taking in these remarkable surroundings.  I was into warm water up to my ankles, it gently lapped against me and reminded me of the water temperatures of Kauai, not Half Moon Bay.  The sand bar graduated into a moist, well-packed dune, and, after ensuring my runner wouldn’t ebb away from me, I ventured to climb it.  As I neared the top, the light changed from reflected liquid to glitter – and at once at the top of the dune, I saw why: there was a large embankment in front of me littered with gold coins of all kinds.  What in the world was this place?

Look, as a child of the 80s born on a beach, we were all raised on a steady diet of Goonies, Jaws, and Blackbeard.  Pirates of the Caribbean and siren songs were woven sturdily into nearly every memory.  If this was real – and, fuck, I realized it was as I picked up a half-dollar-sized gold piece to verify it – I knew better than to mess with any of it.  I gently placed the medallion right back where I had found it and headed back to my Sea-Doo.  No need to wander further to find the skeletal remains of the poor bastards that had tried to collect or protect this treasure, feathered tricorn hats on their heads and swords at their waists.  This was a spectacular sight, but I had no desire to go full-Indiana Jones here.

I retraced my steps and made it back to the wave runner, relieved that it had stayed put even for just five minutes.  And yet, I was suddenly turned around – totally bewildered.  Where there had been rippling light and a tunnel-like opening that led out to the open ocean was now a closed-off alcove with no egress.  I spun around and all light slowly tapered and the warmth in the air turned stale, muggy, and the stench of putrid fish and rotting seaweed filled the air around me.  The ground beneath my feet was spongy and moved beneath me almost like quicksand.  I turned on my emergency light pinned on my shoulder and it was almost out of juice.  The faint light it produced revealed a dark graying pink almost carpeted floor, and, as I turned my gaze upwards, I saw a ribbed, rose-colored roof that was only about a foot overhead.  I felt the walls closing in on me and couldn’t tell if they really were or if it was merely an effect of my failing lamp which made my world appear to begin and end within six inches of my person.

Then, I hear music in the distance.  “Then may the Wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum.  One day when the tugging is done we’ll take our leave an go.”  The shanty was being sung in real-time, and it only took a few more steps for me to find the source of the disembodied voices: two men sat, huddled around a small campfire, bent over, toiling away at repairing a vast whaling net.  Their hands were skilled and they worked in harmony with one another.  The floor beneath me pitched and I stumbled over my feet, making myself known to the old fishermen.  They looked at me over the top of their wire-rimmed spectacles, which they each wore low on their noses.  “You alright there, mate?” the larger of the two men asked, looking back down at his hemp line.  I spun around, half expecting him to be talking to someone else – just what in the hell was happening here?

I sat down with them, warm enough and enjoying the glow from the fire and a lamp light.  Somehow, I instinctively fell into their rhythm of repairing the tangled and broken net with them.  My mind stopped asking questions and grew calm.  A loud geyser-like sound emanated from far behind the men – beyond where the light reached, and the two sages lifted their feet in unison as a large rush of water swept under them, without skipping a beat.  Small fish mixed with kelp and other organic debris washed around us and then swept back out.  They put their feet back down.  My eyes focused just long enough for me to see my surroundings more clearly: what was this rare earth beneath our feet?  Slimy and ridged.  I squinted just beyond my compatriots into the darkening cave and saw a dark pink singular stalactite hanging in the distance.

I once again looked up and saw a repeating pattern of mauve ripples, each about a foot apart.  I turned my attention to where the sailors were perched – they were each leaning against large graying rock-like structures.  Now they changed their tune, “Show me the way to go home.  I’m tired and I wanna go to bed.  I had a little drink about an hour ago and it got right to my head.”  Another sea shanty.

I grabbed a lit log from the campfire and raised it above my head, incurring the ire of the salty dogs, “Oh, don’t do that, fella.  Old girl will spit us back out into the abyss.”

What in the ever-living fuck…no way was I in the mouth of a whale alongside two real-life fucking Geppettos?  I snapped out of my trance and turned to try to return to my wave runner, growing frantic and feeling the tightness of the wetsuit compressing like a giant rubber band around my ribcage.  I tripped and was suddenly over my head, sinking quickly into dark water – taking it into my lungs and dropping quickly.

“Erreh!  Erreh!  Umm bah doo meee!” I heard in the distance from across the expanse of water.  “Derek!  Derek!  Come back to me buddy!  Derek!  Come back buddy, I know you can hear me, you sonofabitch.  Come back buddy!”  I sputtered and felt a crack in my sternum – my eyes pushed outward against my orbital sockets and I coughed up more pink foam.  The light was blinding, and I squinted my eyes open.  My head was pounding.  A crowd leaned in and I heard applause erupt as someone squealed, “He’s ALIVE!” 

Oh my god, I was alive.