Afloat

If you are reading this that means I survived being Stranded at sea and lived to tell my story. My name is Maria and here is the story of the time I was stranded at sea.

June 17th, 2019, it started off as a normal summer day. Me and my younger sister Gabriella (but I call her Ella) met up at my house on the inlet and loaded my 2017 Monterey yacht and headed off to the Bahamas to visit our aunt and uncle, as we would normally do every summer. A few hours go by, at this point we are 50,000 miles out from land. We are having a fun time dancing to music and drinking smoothies, in small bikinis as I captained the yacht. Another hour goes by, it is around 3:00 p.m. when we came to a sudden stop. I tried to restart the engine a few times, but it would not budge so me, and Ella go to the back of the deck to see what was happening. We gasp in sync... there was a hole in the gas tank. Gas was leaking out faster than we have time to think. In a hurried panic, I order Ella to inflate the emergency raft, while I run inside and throw everything out of my suitcase and I grab as much food, water bottles, and personal belonging that can fit inside. 5 minutes go by, Ella has the raft inflated and paddle to row us to land ready to go, and my suitcase was filled and ready to go. It was only a matter of time before we are going to go under, we go to the back of the deck where the stairs go down to the water. Carefully Ella puts the emergency raft into the water. She steps down the stairs one foot in front of the other, she steps into the raft and takes a seat. With my suitcase in both hands, I step into the raft and sit down on the other side. On the outside I was calm, I had to be but, on the inside I was having a heart attack. All I could think in that moment was are me and my sister going to die? I snap back into reality, in front of me was Ella crying while paddling for her life, not to far behind us was the sinking ship. And surrounding us was nothing else but the deep, dark blue sea. So far out from land, there was no one to call for help, no one was going to save us. We took turns paddling while the other would hold the suitcase on their lap. A few hours go by, at this point I was starting to lose hope as the deep blue sea and nothing else surrounded me. The sun was about to set, and I knew the night would be the worst part. The only food we had was plain bread and that is what we ate for dinner that night, and we drank plenty water to keep hydrated. But now both of us were eager to use the bathroom since we had been holding it for hours, terrified of what was lurking in the dark water beneath us we decided we would try to use the bathroom in empty water bottles. Which happened to be a bad idea when half of it was in the bottle and half was on the raft, the smell of our own urine and body odder was so disgusting, I threw up into the water. I wanted to just scream on the top of my lungs, I was the most scared I had been in my whole life. Restless we decided to take turns sleeping while the other held the suitcase.

The next morning, little did I know than the worst was yet to come. Still exhausted with only a few hours of sleep, functioning on nothing but pure adrenaline, and the smell was horrendous. I do not know how long we paddled for that morning, but I do know is that I could not paddle for one more second, and neither could Ella. We sat motionless in the raft for a while talking about life. All a sudden I hear a little high pitch sound, not knowing what it was coming from I go silent, I look at Ella, you could've heard a pin drop. I feel the raft deflating beneath my feet, in that moment I thought I was going to die. In less than 10 minutes the raft is now sinking, and so was the suitcase. All we could do is us our bodies to stay afloat. Not knowing where we are, or what Is in the water with us. I hold my sister right hand and tell her to just breath and that our breath will keep us afloat, I tell her we can not give up. The more that time goes by I can feel my heart sinking into my stomach, terrified of the night that was bound to come. As I lose hope, I hear what sounds like a horn, I turn my head and there it is a boat. I scream with all the air left in my lungs “please help us”. The boat comes towards us, for our rescue. I had never been so relived in my life, a man named Luis Boom puts the boat ladder down so we can climb on. Luis asks how we got into that situation, I tell him exactly what happened, he tells us we are on the coast of Florida, and I ask if he would please take us home, he does. I thank Luis Boom for saving our lives and getting us home safely, if it was not for him I don’t think me or Ella would have been able to stay afloat much longer.