THE RESCUE
It was a cold crisp Saturday morning around five o'clock. Our Coast Guard boat was anchored about two hundred yards off shore. There should have been a pier nearby, but the fog was too thick to catch a glimps of this massive framework. The structure that was going to hold all the spectators, was in disguise. The radar was picking up the outline of the jagged cliffs and long shoreline. It was a typical day in a new port. We where here to do a demostration on water safety with the public. This event was aonce in a life time occurrence. The news media was going to be there that day.
I was awakened just before sunrise by the movement in the incommodious berthing area. This space we call home when we are out to sea is a compartment in which six men try to sleep. It is like two three high bunk beds in a conifined jailcell. I decieded to get up and get some coffee, and clean the crusties out of my eyes. I'm usually not a morning person, but today was something special. I was going to be on TV today.
After I got my black pungent coffee and begun my moring ritual of pouring half a cup of sugar in it, I wanted to get some fresh air and be out of everyone's path. The smell of the ebony coffee and the salty ocean air was a sure thing to wake me up that morning. The air was an artic chill coming down from the north. My eyes were watering like a garden hose left on during a summer's heat wave. The water was a dead calm, almost not for real. The fog laid across the ocean like a blanket covering a small child on a cold stormy night. Ths fog had a strange feeling about it. It flowed through your body, as if the Grim Reaper came in for a visit.
I wanted to be a part of this whole collage. I wanted to be one with it: the ocean and the fog, together holding and grasping me without letting go. I grabed a fellow shipmate and asked him if he too wanted to be part of this.
We had a small boat attached to our Coast Guard boat, it was the true hero of all our major cases. She was always able to fit anywhere we needed her. The small boat was about twelve feet in length and it had a small thirty-horsepowered engine on the stern. I had on my large orange life jacket. It is a must when you plan to challenge our ocean. We prepared to lower the small boat into the dark, gloomy, frigid water. Around the time we got the boat boat into the water the sun was creeping through the fog but had little hope of overtaking it. The fog was just too powerful this morning.
The shipemate and myself proceeded with the normal routine of doing the radio checks and making sure we will be safe, incase danger might partake us into its hell. Everything was working in order. Perfect, or so we thought. As we pulled away from the large Coast Guard ship, our secure platform became a white blur. After about twenty minutes after our umbilical cord was cut, we had this bizarre, unexplained desire to go closer to the shoreline. The surf was almost nonexistent.
The other shipemate noticed that were people in a kayak. enjoying the serene beauty of that morning. They were waving thier arms in the air as they were seeing someone off for a long cruise. Except they weren't throwing confetti. We waved back to them in a kind gesture, but thier arms would not to rest. I decieded to approach them to see what thier excitement was. As we got closer, I could see the outline of a man's body draped across the back of the kayak, like a saddle bag laid across a tired old horse. The couple appeared exhausted, as if they had been trying to escape the grasp of the Grim Reaper.
The lady had been paddling for almost two hours. her husband's kayak had capsized on the rocks. His bloody, torn body had been fighting the elements of the icy ocean trying to survice, testing his strength to defeat death single handily.
As soon as we reached the couple they grabed for our boat like children trying to get the last cookie out of the cookie jar. I saw that the man was in gruesome condition, with cuts and bruises dispersed about his body. i clutched the badly beaten man with all my force and pulled him cautiously into my boat. The lady had just enough strength to be able to land herself in. I checked his pulse to see if he was still fighting. To my great astonishment it was weak but still pumping. I seized the life jacket off my back and covered his cold numb body.
On the way back to the dock where the paramedics were to meet us, I was thinking, the Grim Reaper didn't get his prey this moring. He will have to starve and look for another soul to take. I realized that being on TV later that day was in no way as significant as the events of that fateful morning. I didn't think that moment in time was going to be the day that changed my life, but it did. In more ways than one.
MY LIFE
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