But after 20 minutes, we as a group felt it a good idea to have a check in with Hector just to ensure that he was okay. We gave the tether a good tug, but it didn’t feel taut, and we got no response from Hector. Therefore, we began pulling on the rope to gather in any slack so that Hector would feel our pulls. That’s when we realized that as we gathered in the line, there was nothing attached to the other end. All we reeled in was an empty rope.
Jeremy immediately, and against my wishes, dove into the water with tether in tow to see if Hector was still below the boat. At that point, most of us felt it likely that the tether had just slipped free or that Hector may have removed it to make his work easier. But upon Jeremy’s return, he said that Hector was nowhere to be seen. That’s when we climbed on top of the lifeboat to see if we could spot him.
It’s hard to tell just how quickly we’re moving with no stationary objects by which to judge the lifeboat’s progress. But even if we’re moving with the current at just a mile or two per hour, and with the waves making it hard for a person to see over them, we could be out of reach and even out of sight within five or ten minutes if someone were to be swept clear of the lifeboat.
After a few minutes of us scanning the sea atop the lifeboat however, the sinking realization began to set in as darkness began to fall that Hector might be lost for good. What makes it even worse is that we have no idea what might have happened to him. Did he pass out and drown? Did he bump his head on the bottom of the boat or the propeller blade and lose consciousness? Was he unwittingly separated from his tether and then washed away from the lifeboat by an errant wave?
No one knows, and as we wait up here watching for him, it grows increasingly likely that we’ll never know.
7:54 p.m.
It’s more of those horrid lifeboat biscuits for dinner. I’m so sick of them. But beggars can’t be choosers. I wasn’t even really that hungry after the whole Hector thing, but I know that I need to eat; otherwise, someone else will eat my share and consume those valuable calories.
As darkness falls, I’m going to remain on top of the lifeboat with Jeremy, Richard, and Oswald to keep up the search for Hector. We’ll stay out here as long as we can. We’re going to get a flashlight so that we can signal with it in the dark. Somehow, maybe, just maybe, Hector will see the light and be able to swim back to the lifeboat. It’s our only hope.
September 17th
(Lifeboat – Day 6)
9:12 a.m.
It was a late night. We stayed atop the lifeboat until almost midnight signaling with our light and calling out, but there was no sign of Hector. Even then, the entire boat worked in shifts to keep up the search throughout the night in the off chance that Hector might be able to see and follow our signals back to the boat.
But there was nothing.
I guess he’s gone, gone for good. Poor thing. I can only imagine being lost and alone at sea…I mean, without the lifeboat and people aboard it that is. It’s bad enough in our current situation, but being adrift and without anyone or anything to help you. Ugh…it makes me shudder just to think about it.
Maybe he met a swift end. Maybe he just passed out and drowned while working. I hope so. That might sound cruel, but it sounds much better to me than floating at sea for days just hoping to catch sight of the lifeboat again only to eventually succumb to the sea.
Yet even after all our efforts yesterday, our dilemma remains – the engine is still fouled and someone needs to go back out and work to clear it. Worse yet, Jeremy has volunteered for the task.
I hate this. It’s a horrible feeling. I feel like he’s doing it just to look like a hero in front of me, and frankly, I don’t want him playing the hero. I want him here with me. If something happens to him, I don’t know what I’ll do. That’s why two can play at this little game of his. I’ve volunteered to go with him. That way, while I might not be able to work on the propeller since I can’t hold my breath that long, I can at least serve as a lookout and notify the others if something goes wrong. If something is going to happen to Jeremy, it’s going to happen to me too. That is what marriage is. It’s what we both signed on for…’til death do us part. I just hope it doesn’t come to that.
10:24 a.m.
Wow! We worked on the propeller for nearly an hour and it’s still not cleared of its obstruction. It’s really bound up. A big sheet of plastic has wrapped itself around the propeller super tightly and it has to be cut off bit by bit.
Jeremy is exhausted. So am I. Just because I wasn’t diving and working on the propeller doesn’t mean I wasn’t doing anything. I had to tread water, make sure our tether lines remained secure, watch for sharks, and also keep an eye on Jeremy to make sure he didn’t pass out from too much diving. It was a very stressful hour to say the least. You feel very exposed out there floating around.
Toward the end of our stint, Jeremy was pushed forward by a wave and hit his head on the bottom of the boat. He has a nice little gash on his forehead, but I think he’ll be okay. I’m thankful that’s all that happened, and if that’s the least of his injuries, I’ll take it.
So Jeremy managed to get a decent amount of the plastic cleared, but there is still work to be done. Lucian and Amanda are up next. They don’t seem super thrilled about the prospects of having to work on the propeller, but we all have to pull our weight. If they can’t get it cleared, Richard and Barbara will be up next. We’ve left them for last since they are older.
Julian tried to volunteer for his mother’s spot as lookout but was quickly shot down by his parents, much to his dismay. I think he’s itching to get outside the boat. I have a feeling he wouldn’t be itching so much if he actually had to be out there. It’s not fun – not like a guide-supervised snorkeling trip, that’s for sure.
For once, I’m actually looking forward to lunch. I really worked up an appetite out there with Jeremy. Even our lackluster biscuits seem mildly appetizing.
11:37 a.m.
Well, I guess Richard and Barbara are up next for working on the propeller. Lucian and Amanda couldn’t cut it…literally. They said they got more of the plastic off, but there is still some remaining. They ate their lunch early so that they had some time to digest before they went out. The last thing we need is someone cramping up out there while they’re working.
3:35 p.m.
We’re all just kind of sitting here in a daze. I think that everyone is in shock after what happened. In fact, I don’t think I can even bring myself to write about it yet. It’s all still too fresh, too raw.
5:02 p.m.
Okay, I guess I’ve calmed enough to write. I don’t really want to, but there isn’t much else to do, and sometimes getting my thoughts down on paper helps me feel better – like confessing my sins or something.
So as I mentioned earlier, Barbara and Richard went out to work on the jammed propeller. They’d been out there working for about half and hour when suddenly one of the safety tethers we’d attached to them started jerking like crazy. It wasn’t just the two tugs we’d emphasized to everyone before going out into the water, it was a very rapid jerking against the line. This was followed instants later by the sound of someone yelling from the water.
We all hurried to the lifeboat’s door where Amanda had been standing watch beside where the two tethers were attached to the interior of the boat. We immediately began hauling Richard and Barbara by the tether lines back to the boat. Meanwhile, the screaming outside the boat continued. But by the time we got the two back inside, it was already too late. Both of them had been bitten badly by sharks.
It’s weird; I hadn’t seen a shark the entire time we were out working. Neither had anyone else for that matter. Even when Hector and Jeremy had injured themselves and there was blood in the water, there was no sign of them. I had been hyper-aware just in case. Yet I hadn’t seen a thing.
That being said, they were certainly out there for Richard and Barbara. Richard had been bitten terribly in his left leg. There was a huge chunk gone from his lower cal
f as well as his upper thigh. He had also been bitten on his right arm and hand, apparently when he’d tried to push away from the shark that was attacking him.
Barbara’s wounds weren’t as severe looking, but they were bleeding A LOT.
We got them both laid out on the lifeboat floor and did our best to first stem the bleeding while organizing the paltry few medical supplies we have at our disposal. Looking back on it now, I don’t know why we even bothered. The medical kit we have aboard is for minor injuries, not shark attacks. How are you going to treat hunks of missing flesh with antibiotic ointment, small bandages, and tweezers?
Barbara lost consciousness from blood loss probably two minutes after we hauled her back on board. She died about a minute later. Richard lasted a bit longer, but not much. He succumbed a few minutes after his wife.
The entire time we were working on them, the lifeboat was a scene of chaos – crying, shouting, instructing, explaining. But it made no difference in the end. We didn’t have the supplies or the training to handle such injuries.
After we were sure both Richard and Barbara were gone, we were faced with a macabre decision. We could either keep their bodies aboard with us, which in this heat and tight quarters didn’t seem like the best idea, or we could dump their bodies overboard to be finished by the sharks. The thought of continuing to feed the sharks with our poor deceased shipmates was bad enough. But we also feared that by doing so, we’d only be training them like stray dogs to stick close to our lifeboat in hopes of receiving further treats. This would end any hope of clearing the remaining debris around the propeller, not that I think anyone is going to be jumping up and down to go back out there now.
In any event, we abandoned Richard and Barbara to the sea…and to the sharks. It was horrible listening to the sound of the pack of sharks thrashing about in the water during their feeding frenzy knowing that it was our lifeboat compatriots they were feasting on. But what choice did we really have?
The six of us who remain aboard then spent about half an hour cleaning up all the blood and sea water that had accumulated inside our lifeboat.
Added to all this, while we were working to remove this disgusting accumulation of bilge from our boat, we noticed that the crack in the lifeboat’s hull has gotten worse. Water keeps seeping in, and it’s at a faster rate that it was before. It’s gone from a “seep” to a “burble” now. Before, you couldn’t really see the water coming in, it just sort of appeared. Now you can actually see a little raised spot of water in the floor at the point where it enters the boat, almost like a super-tiny fountain.
We’ve tried our best to plug the crack, but it really hasn’t worked. The crack is big enough to allow water in, but not big enough to actually fit a rag, a piece of cloth or something else inside to plug it. And while the flow of water isn’t enough to actually bail with a bucket (thank god), it means we constantly have to cover it with rags or bits of clothing to absorb the inflow and then wring them out over the side of the lifeboat. At this point, it’s largely a nuisance more than anything else – just one more thing we have to deal with in our ever-worsening situation.
Now we have a leaky craft with a fouled propeller. I’ll probably sound horrible saying this, but I guess the only bright side (if you can call it that) is that with Hector, Richard, and Barbara now gone, our supply situation is looking slightly better. Even then, I’m not sure how long our water will hold out. I’m not worried about food so much as water. We probably have enough water left for maybe a week. After that, I’m not sure exactly what we’ll do.
It’s time for dinner. Biscuits – oh boy!
I really just want it to get dark so that I can hopefully fall asleep. While I’m mentally exhausted, and I’m pretty tired physically as well after our swimming this afternoon, my brain just keeps running and running. I keep thinking about Hector, about Richard, about Barbara. It’s so terrible…all of this. The flu, all the people who died aboard the cruise ship, the people here who died aboard the lifeboat, and the few of us who remain, we’ve all suffered in our own personal ways. I have to say, I’m very glad to still be alive, but at the same time, it’s getting harder to stay that way by the day.
7:03 p.m.
I might sound somewhat petty and selfish writing about this after what has transpired today, but what else do I have to do? Our bathroom system has been screwed up royally since the shark attack.
After the storm subsided, and before the sharks arrived, we had moved our toilet area over to the lifeboat door. We moved the tarp that had been positioned toward one end of the lifeboat and that acted as our “privacy screen” over to hang in front of the door. This allowed people to sit on the door opening’s edge, privacy tarp in front of them, to hang their rear ends out over the lifeboat’s side. This way, solid waste could be ejected directly from the source out into the open ocean. This decreased both embarrassment as well as smell when using the toilet for number two. And for the ladies, it was nice as well. With some careful balancing, and by holding onto the sides of the lifeboat doorway, we could pee over the side. Men could just belly up to the doorway and pee freely out into the ocean. It was working out much better until the sharks came because after we’d used the toilet, we could lower our bottom halves into the water for a quick dip to “rinse” ourselves free of any waste material. We called it our ocean bidet.
Now we have assigned everyone their own individual piece of cloth that must be used as toilet paper and then rinsed out by hand in the ocean afterward. We make sure we move extra fast and we tend to keep a watchful eye more on the water around us than we do our actual rinsing due to the shark presence. It’s not fun, but it certainly keeps potty trips to a minimum. Thankfully we have some hand sanitizer for hand cleaning once we’re done with the washing process.
September 18th
(Lifeboat – Day 7)
7:41 a.m.
I can’t believe we’ve been in this lifeboat for almost a week. I mean, we were at the island for about a day, but still, the cruise ship sank almost a week ago. I thought we’d be back to the mainland for sure by now.
Speaking of making it back to the mainland, I noticed that someone has fiddled with the hour marks I drew on the lifeboat’s wall. They wrote “FUCK THIS!” beside them. I tried to erase the lines earlier in our trip, after our second breakdown, but I wrote them in permanent ink. It took too much effort and just left dark yellowish tinted lines when I tried to scrub them away.
I have no idea who wrote the words beside them or when. I just noticed them this morning, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been there for a while. I really haven’t been paying much attention to my marks lately. It doesn’t matter anyway. I can relate to their expression of frustration, whoever it was.
It was another extremely long night last night. We had to take turns watching and dealing with the leak. It seems to keep getting worse no matter what we do. It feels like the more we try to plug it, the worse it gets. Therefore, we’ve just given up on fiddling with it and have focused on maintaining our current situation as best we can.
Still, even our current situation is far from positive. We’re dead in the water, in a leaky boat, with our supplies beginning to run low. We have no idea exactly where we are, how far we might be from the mainland, or what direction the current is taking us. For as terrifying as our situation was aboard the cruise ship, this is far worse. I really am scared shitless. Even though we’re on this vast body of water with nothing but open space around us, it feels almost claustrophobic. There is no where to go other than our capsule-like lifeboat. And while we can climb to its roof for some fresh air, the sun then beats down on us like pieces of meat under an oven broiler.
We’re at the whim of the water out here. It will take us where it pleases, how it pleases, when it pleases. And there’s nothing at all we can do about it. This is depressing as hell, and writing about it doesn’t seem to be helping much any more.
10:52 a.m.
The sharks that were following our boa
t like a pack of hungry wolves seem to have finally disappeared. While I’m thankful they’re gone, their disappearance raises yet another dilemma. Should we try to clear the remaining jam from around the propeller?
Just thinking about it sends shivers down my spine. Just because the sharks appear to be gone doesn’t mean they’re COMPLETELY gone. They might just be lurking somewhere nearby. The last thing I want is for someone – Jeremy or not – to get into the water and swim to the back of the lifeboat to work only to realize that the sharks are still nearby. They can move a heck of a lot faster than we can in the water, and once you see them coming, it’s already too late. Richard and Barbara found that out the hard way, and I sure as heck don’t want to end up like them.
I guess it’s time for a group meeting to figure out what our next move should be.
11:29 a.m.
Our group meeting didn’t go exactly as I’d hoped; although I don’t know exactly how I expected it to go to begin with. I certainly didn’t expect it to end with Jeremy volunteering to go out and attempt to get the rest of the plastic off our propeller. But that’s exactly what happened.
I’m left not knowing what to think. I guess someone has to do it, but I wish it wasn’t us…yes, I said “us”. I’m going with him. There’s no way I’m letting him go alone. Oswald insisted that he take my spot, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I’m sticking by my husband’s side come hell or high water, and I guess that in this instance, it’s kind of both.
The Dystopian Diaries Page 41
