The Ocean Healing

At 35 years old, Reni knew that he could no longer live as he did for the first 34 years of his life. The lazy, reserved, soft-spoken and usually timid character that defined him had to take the back seat for good this time otherwise these habits would erode his life away like the way the 6-foot waves he was currently looking at were eroding the rocky shores of this fish farm beach on which he had found solace.

At first, Reni felt defeated because this was not the first time these thoughts had crossed his mind neither was it the first time he had tried to do something about it. This is why he went alone to the isolated section of the beach on the evening of his first day as a 35-year-old. Not to mention he also liked watching the golden sun as the evening warmth hit his skin and the coastal winds cooled him down.

What he didn't want though was to be part of the several people who had come to the beach to have fun. The attempts to "put himself out there" always resulted in panic attacks. He had therefore chosen a secluded spot distant from and inaccessible to the crowds because of the several fishing nets that covered the fishing farms in that area.

The spot he had taken gave him a great panoramic view of the clear ocean since he expected no one to be there.

That is why he found it odd when in the corner of his eye he noticed what seemed like a human being swimming in the fish fields. He didn't bother to look back because he thought this person was swimming but that didn't last long before her screams of help managed to push through the sound of the waves and into Reni's ears. She was screaming for help. Unbeknownst to Reni, this young lady had been swept by the waves and was now 2 kilometers away from the public beach and about 100 meters from Reni. At the beach, her relatives had given up thinking that she was at the bottom of the ocean and had all set up camp at the beach waiting for her body to surface.

She in the meantime was two kilometers away and now over the fish fields screaming to Reni so he could help her. She had been at this for about 5 minutes when Reni noticed her composing herself again to begin the screams anew. This is why Reni must have thought that she was just swimming over the fish fields until she let out another scream that got his attention.

When Reni turned his attention to her, he noticed how wrong his assumption had been and the little time he had to save this young lady before she drowned. His challenge was that he had to jump into the rocky sea that was raging with massive waves and there were nets all over the place where the girl was. The biggest challenge of them all was that he had never learned how to swim. He saw no use for it. He only preferred watching the sea rage. But he was the only one in the 2 km radius that would help this girl.

Luckily for him, the fishermen had left one of their fishing boats by the rocky shore which they used to cast the nets every morning. Reni figured that puddling was not rocket science and the little knowledge he had would guide him to make a successful saving mission.

He jumped into action and took up the boat, slid it into the ocean, and jumped into it. He then began paddling as fast as he could towards the girl and this was his first mistake. Reni had no idea how the currents worked and thought it was a matter of paddling in a given direction. What he didn't know was that he had to cross a strong river-like current before he got to where the girl was. Even if he knew this, the massive waves that he had to deal with kept him distracted and focused on getting to the girl.

Something else also distracted him. It's what made him lose the initial focus of the mission. This wasn't any girl. No. In fact, this was not a girl that lived in the area. It was Naomi. This was someone Reni had met several years before while studying abroad on a student exchange program.

She and Reni had been in the same class at one point although they never talked given how shy he was. There was also no doubt he had been crushing on her then. The odds of this event happening were so bizarre that Reni stopped paddling for a full minute and looked at Naomi in pure shock. She noticed who he was too and the cries for help became personal. She was now calling out to him by name as if to get him out of his trance. Reni quickly came back to his senses only to notice that he had been swept several feet off course and away from the coast and the girl and he started to panic again. It took all the energy he had to paddle against the current back to the girl but the closer he got to the girl, the stronger the currents became.

That is why he was so relieved when he got so close that the girl finally held onto the boat and pulled herself in. This was a sign of relief for both of them. They never knew what to make of the situation. There were so many emotions running through their minds. From survival to the odd reunion, they didn't know where to start. So a hug at that moment did not seem misplaced. After all their hug only took a few seconds before they noticed that the raging sea was now calm in what seemed like a few seconds.

They could not believe it. No. The sudden calm sea was not what surprised them, nor was it their survival or reunion. It was where they were. To them, between the girl jumping into the boat and them hugging it out was not more than a minute. Yet even with this information, they still could not understand how they were now in an area where there was no visible sight of land at all. They seemed to have drifted thousands of miles away in a couple of seconds. None of them was prepared for this and there was also no sign of anyone who would have helped them.

They would remain like this for 4 days until they noticed a ship on the horizon which was sailing away from them. Naomi was the first to see it as Reni was deep asleep. She tried to wake him up as she waved in signal to the ship for help but the ship showed no sign that it would change direction. Reni had now also woken up and he was rowing hastily to the ship when they noticed that it was just moving forward as well. For a moment, they considered giving up. They both sat down and looked at it as they waited for it to disappear from sight. It was also getting dark so they just prepared to sleep and curled up against one another so that they could remain warm through the cold night. They slowly drifted off to sleep as they gave up hope catching up with the ship on the horizon.

To their surprise, when they woke up early the next morning, they noticed the ship had not left. It seemed to not have drifted at all. Curiously they started paddling their way towards it but again the closer they got, it seemed to just keep moving forward. Someone from the ship also seemed to be dropping apples and a few other fruits in the ocean that they kept picking and eating as they rowed towards it.

This happened for several days until the ship finally disappeared from their sight one morning as they were paddling towards it. Their hope had now faded as they thought and so they began panicking and paddling faster to catch up with it but as they got closer to where they saw the ship, they noticed that they were back on land and in the same place they had been a few days earlier.

On seeing them, the fishermen at the beach went out to meet them and they both seemed fine and healthy. The fishermen told them that they had been at sea for over 13 months. None of them could make sense of how they spent so much time at sea and yet still looked so healthy. When they were asked, Naomi had at one time managed to read the markings on the ship that helped them and when she told the fishermen what the markings were, it shocked them since that ship was thought to have sunk 200 years before but was never found.

The fishermen also noted that they hadn't seen any ship coming before Naomi and Remi. They hadn't seen anything apart from the boat Reni and Naomi came in.

Several weeks after the incident and when Reni and Naomi had reunited with their families, Reni couldn't not shake off the sense of gratitude he had for his life. This manifested in the way he opened up to his communities, the help he gave and even several years later he still borrowed from that experience to build a successful co-operation that helped millions of people around the world. Naomi too used her knew found gratitude to form a fearless personality that made her rise through the ranks of politics to becoming a prime minister in her country. They both said that their experience at sea helped them appreciate the life they lived and dissolved their insecurities while the ship on the horizon brought them back home when the lesson was done.