Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
pleted the projects on Déjà vu, and somehow managed to pick up some more work from the
members of the club. It was as if it were OK to deal with me again. The voodoo had been
broken. Friends shyly came back. Some of them. Enough of them to make a difference in
my life. My heart sang again, as I worked away on my own. I had let go my one yard-hand
that had done most of my hard work, but I did the work and made more money doing it
myself.
One afternoon I went diving for the first time ever with a tank and was being shown the
ropes by a friend who took me out with his regular diving buddy. These two cronies were
poaching bugs or crayfish as they were known, and they left me to my devices. I had a
grand old time swimming about in the icy depths of the Atlantic, some thirty feet down.
My friend appeared after a while and, looking at my air gauge, pointed for me to surface
and swim back the quarter mile to shore. As I was surfacing I noticed that air wasn't being
fed into my mouthpiece as easily as it had been. I had run out of air! My two companions
were too engrossed in poaching to notice, and they had failed to instruct me how to roll
over on my back or how to use a snorkel in this event. They had not even taken the time to
see I was without a snorkel!
This was the second time I had nearly drowned and was by far the closest call I have ever
had in my life. How I got to the rock that was miraculously between me and the shore, I will
never know. I somehow dragged myself up on this little mound, threw up all the water in
my lungs, and promptly passed out. This is how my friends found me, and they soon woke
me up, helping me ashore. Driving home, I had time to reflect on what had just happened
and realized that I could just have easily died on that rock.
My experiences in Cape Town had left me a wiser man. I had lost my wife and son, as
things had come to a head. I had also learned the terrible dangers of drinking in excess and
its inevitable path to ruin. I felt that the near death experience had been a sign, and that it
was time to take the voyage I had been planning for and preparing for now for over ten
years. It was shortly after that that ads were answered for crew by Paula and Herman, and
my voyage was underway.
