Shipwrecked

Maya stood waist deep in the water, standing perfectly still, watching, waiting, all of a sudden she quickly stabbed something with the spear in her hand. She quickly pulled up her catch, placed it in the bucket beside her attached to her waist using rope. Quickly she moved again and speared another fish, this too was quickly moved to the bucket.

All of a sudden came a shriek and a shout from the beach. Maya rolled her eyes and held her still stance as the shouts of shark reached her from the shore. Her eyes scanned the water around her looking for the fin, she spotted it. It was headed towards her no doubt drawn towards the fish she’d been catching. She spotted a second dorsal as it went to butt the bucket, using her spear’s handle she butted it back, it swam round her before moving off. Once it had moved away, she slowly made her way back to the shore keeping splashing and unnecessary disturbances to an absolute minimum. Once she was only ankle deep the two that had been shouting rushed over to her.

“Oh my god, did it bite you.” Juliana babbled.

“No.” Maya replied evenly.

“Thought you were a goner there for sure.” Matt said nudging her shoulder.

“It can’t be that difficult” muttered Felix, almost under his breath, more loudly he said. “How many did you catch?”

“A dozen mixed.” Maya replied.

“What kind of shark was it?” Ren asked.

“Bull shark about 2 metres, couldn’t sex it though, also didn’t see a tag.”

“Why do you care what sex it is?” Juliana asked.

“If it’s a female we could be in a breeding area and that would mean other researchers would be around. If it’s tagged then that would also give us an idea of where we are roughly.”

“Any luck?” Felix called out to Al and Kai as they returned to the group.

They shook their heads defeatedly. “How goes the wood collection?” Al asked pointedly of Felix and Juliana, looking at the feeble pile.

“We have 2 more hours before we won’t have enough light. Why don’t Al and Kai look after the fire and check for debris along the shore, Maya and I will go that way.” He said pointing in the opposite direction to where Al and Kai had come from. “Juliana and Felix, you go that way.”

“Did you mark your route?” Maya asked of Al and Kai.

They nodded.

“Who made you boss?” Felix asked, his privilege causing Maya’s hackles to rise.

“No one, we are a team.” Ren said calmly.

“Any sign of Izzy and Johan?” Kai asked.

“We might see them while we collect wood and look for water. Keep an eye out for plants that are edible.”

“Not all of us grew up as hunter gatherers, how are we supposed to know.” Felix said causing a ripple of discomfort.

“I don’t know what’s edible unless I buy it in whole foods.” Juliana said trying to dissolve the tension.

“Fine, Maya and I will go this way. Juliana and Ren that way.” Felix said attempting to take control.

They split up and started off. Maya reflected while she walked, it was 2 days since the ship wreck really, they had one more day without water. Tempers were starting to obviously flare, as she walked she gathered large leaves as well as wood, small and large pieces.

Felix tended to stay ahead of her muttering to himself. Apparently, he would be suing everyone from his travel agent to the taxi driver who’d driven him to the docks. Spying something, she called out to him but he didn’t hear or chose not to. She called out twice more and then gave up on him.

Gazing up at the tree she figured she could climb up and cut some down. She made her way up the tree and looked around she spotted stuff on the shoreline which she wanted to investigate, but first coconuts. Halfway through, using her little multi tool knife to cut the branch that would release several coconuts in one go. She heard Felix yelling, she called out to him and eventually he came stomping back dragging a massive stump, she bit her tongue. She secured her coconuts and slowly made her way back down.

“What are you doing?” He snapped at her.

“Coconuts, food and liquid in one. I think we should leave your magnificent tree here and come back and chop it up before moving it.”

“Why?”

“It’s heavy and will be easier to move in smaller bits and it’s a good landmark for where to start tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

“But I have seen something down by the shore, I think it could be useful.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I’m not sure. Too far to see clearly, but it could be debris or rubbish that’s washed up and we can use everything we can find.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, if its plastic it could help us float a raft or store water when we find it. If it has sharp edges we can make more spears for fishing or hunting. Depending on what we find and its condition it could give us a clue to our proximity to more land.”

“How many uninhabited islands could they possibly look for me on?” Felix scoffed.

“A couple of million worldwide.”

“Jesus.”

“It’s not so bad, they should be able to narrow it down to a distance from where the ship went down. We keep the signal fire nice and big, hopefully they’ll find us in a day or two.”

“Why are you so calm?”

“No one is injured, the island has food. When we find water, we are good.” She trailed off.

They’d arrived at the stuff she’d seen from the tree.

“Is that?”

“Yes.”

Maya ran to the second life boat. It was pretty smashed up but their stuff was still in it. No sign of the 3 crew members who’d been in it. She looked it over carefully a couple of bite marks on the hull, it wouldn’t really float anymore but it was in better condition than their own lifeboat, which had been smashed to pieces on rocks before they’d made it to shore.

“We should go get the others to help carry it.” Felix said excitedly.

“No let’s help it float back to the others.”

“Not near the sharks though?”

“No, we barely need to go in up to our knees.”

Maya put her collection of stuff into the boat and then her and Felix gathered up anything useful that they could spot surrounding the boat before manoeuvring it into the water. They were halfway back and they had been stopping to collect more driftwood and debris and put into the boat as they went.

“So how do you know all this stuff?” Felix asked. Having watched her pull an exceptionally slimy bit of seaweed covered rope into the boat.

“I grew up by the sea, my dad and grandad were both fishermen. Is that how you learnt to stop the shark earlier?”

“Yes and no, I’m a marine biologist, specialising in sharks and their conservation. What do you do?”

“Oh, nothing really just travelling, before I take over the family business.” He paused. “So why sharks.”

“They are so cool, barely changed in 100 million years and we know so little about them. Plus, you ever swum with sharks?” Maya lit up when talking about sharks, Felix noticed.

“No, did a swim with dolphins and some other scuba but not sharks. Izzy wouldn’t like that.”

“Tell you what, when we get off here, I’ll take you in.”

“Wow, isn’t that dangerous.”

“Not really you have to be chill and respect you are visiting their home but they only bite you if you’re splashing, making a scene or you act like food.”

“Like today with the shark, you stayed so calm.”

“Yeah, I was basically sat in his kitchen stealing his food, of course he came up to see what I was doing. Fishing always attracts them but when I’m at work I bait them in with fish so we can scan and tag them.”

“That sounds pretty cool.”

Maya nodded as they rounded the final bend to base camp. “Shit, Felix, I want you to get out of the water, we need to both pull the boat into the shore.”

“What, why, oh.”

The sea was turning pink around them. They pulled the boat up and then ran to camp.

At camp it was a scene of chaos. Ren was administering first aid to a hysterical Juliana. Izzy was bleeding out. Al had a shirt as a bandage wrapped around his right hand. Johan had a 4 foot reef shark speared. Kai was hopelessly trying to tend to Izzy. Felix dropped to his knees beside Izzy

Maya ran back to the boat and pushed it into the water staying as shallow as possible she pulled it up to camp. Ren seeing her ran to her help. They got the boat back to the camp and banked it in the sand. Maya jumped in and started tossing out things that would be useful, the boat’s first aid kit, her go bag, Ren’s go bag. She went to Izzy first but couldn’t find a pulse, she moved to Juliana. Although Juliana was covered in blood, she only had one small bite on her.

Juliana cried that it was Izzy’s blood and she got bit when she pulled her out of the water. Maya stroked her hair told she was very brave, while Ren cleaned and bandaged the wound. Kai had moved away to the boat and was going through bags. Ren and Maya went to Al, it was bad probably an artery thought Maya, did they cauterise it and risk infection or superglue it and worry that internal bleeding might kill him slowly.

They called for Kai and Johan to hold Al still. Maya kept pressure while Red heated up the metal spear, he used a jumper to protect his hands from the heat after the first sizzle of his flesh Al passed out. It took 3 more goes to get the whole wound done. When they were done Kai and Johan crawled away looking sick. Maya cleaned and dressed the wound while Ren tidied up all the rubbish.

Maya then made her way to Felix, she hugged him and whispered to him. Eventually he nodded and moved to Julianna, he helped her up the beach away from everything. Maya stoked the fire while Ren got Kai and Johan to help him lift Izzy’s body into the fire. They then all moved upwind of it. Maya grabbed her leaves and coconut from the boat. Using her multitool she handed them out to people to drink from. Having drunk hers she started weaving the leaves together, Ren joined her watching before copying.

Felix and Julianna returned. He too sat and watched Maya before attempting to copy her.

“What happened?” Felix asked.

“We bumped into Izzy and Johan with a load of wood and some water they’d found. So, we helped them back to camp. Kai and Al were in the water.” Julianna said through tears.

Kai sighed. “Al and I thought we’d have a go at spear fishing. We caught a couple of fish but then a shark came up, it bit Al. I tried to stop it with the spear.”

“Izzy and I went to help. More sharks came. I stabbed that one.” Johan gestured.

“Izzy and I were helping Al get to shore.” Kai said.

“Why’d you bring the shark in?” Ren asked.

“To eat. Revenge” Johan said.

“And get toxic poisoning?” Ren asked.

What a waste Maya thought. Stupidity and lack of knowledge costing lives as normal.