This is a true story. The year was 1989. It was summer. I owned a small boat, a fifteen footer. It was small runabout with a 65 horsepower engine and it wasn't always reliable but I was happy it worked the times I put her in. I always enjoyed using it for freshwater pond fishing but it was a fiberglass tri-hull suitable for ocean or bay fishing.
I named my boat the Malaise after a car in the Speed Racer storyline. The Malaise (Ma Lahz) was also known as the X-3 and it was a car that when it showed up, other cars crashed, like a bad omen. And I remember some bad luck with my boat so I thought the name was appropriate. Not until this moment did I realize what it also meant as I pen this story.
My best friend from high-school Keith Wright and his friend Earl Parsons were with me this day. Keith and I had been toying with the idea of forming a band. That time had no yet come, but we were good friends that did a lot of fishing together and we went as far as to buy motorcycles so we could pal around and do day trips on them.
I had begun to use my boat to meet girls and I'd float around a lot on my own too. It was a great time in my life. I didn't realize it so much at the time. I recall using my boat a lot on the upper Chesapeake. I'd put in at the Perryville Fish market which is now gone and replaced by condo's. Kinda sad I thought when I saw it happen one summer. No more easy access to the Susquehanna flats and no more playing volleyball at Sand Island. No more water skiing or inter-tubing on the flats.
Keith was beginning to take a big interest in surf fishing or open water fishing. I didn't care for it. I still liked dropping my boat in small ponds like Lum's pond where my tri-hull and an electric trolling motor on the bow seemed indomitable. I have to admit, I felt safe on my big fiberglass tri-hull on ponds. Taking it to the ocean wasn’t my cup of tea. But Keith wanted to go fishing on the open water. I convinced him we could do both. We could do some inter-tubing and fishing. I strange combination perhaps, but we did in fact do just what we agreed to.
The day was perfect. No chop, pleasant weather. A hot summer day by anybody’s standards. We put in at Lewis Delaware. It took some time to come out through the coastal waterway but then we had broken to open water. We even crossed the direct route of the Cape May Lewis Ferry. We decided of all places to inter-tube right off the point of Cape Henlopen itself. The water was rougher than a pond and we didn’t realize it but we fatigued ourselves trying to inter-tube in the bay (ocean) water. We did know we were tired so we put in right there at the point of the cape. To look at on a map and be there at that very point on Delaware was an unusual feeling; surreal.
Now having taken my coast guard class, I knew we needed a Danforth anchor which has a fork type end and uses a long length of rope or chain. The rule is seven times the dept of the water. However I had been doing nothing but pond fishing so I removed my Danforth anchor and went with a mushroom anchor. These type anchors sink in the mud and don’t use as much length as it’s just not needed. I decided to beach the boat instead. But the beach head was strange to me. The surf was for some reason too easily twisting my boat sideways with the surf and beating up my boat. I resorted to taking the boat out 10 feet and dropping the mushroom anchor. Keith, Earl and I got to inspecting the beach. A few moments later, unnoticed my the tide came in a bit, raised my mushroom anchor off the bottom of the ocean floor and my boat slowly began to drift out to sea. You see, at the cape, there is no gradual surf going out to sea. This place is an abrupt drop off. Ten or so feet off the shoreline the water drops off a shelf to a depth I don’t even know, but I felt it. Earlier I was in the surf walking the boat and “Whoa!” I stepped off a cliff it seemed. I didn’t touch bottom that was for sure. It was deep, and it was sudden. For now, my boat was close enough to shore for my mushroom to do the trick.
“Hey Lars, your boat’s floating off!” Yelled Earl. I ran to the edge of the surf. I looked at my boat. It was 25 yards out to sea. My thoughts were panicked. I quickly scanned the horizon in every direction. I could see no boats to wave down. I looked back up the beach shoreline of the sanctuary. There was NO ONE here. I bet no one could even access this place except by boat as we had. This place was a protected reserve, there was NO as far as the eye could see. I looked back towards Lewis and the Ferry. There were a few boats but it seemed they were miles off. My phone, and my car keys were in the boat. The only thing I had at the surf line was my camera and Keith was taking photos with it.
I jumped into the surf. This was it. I had to swim for it. I swam and swam hard. I was never a good swimmer. I hated my swimming ability. Some people can float in a pool. Me, I could never just float. I was passionately swimming out to sea. Keith didn’t think much of this, he took photos of me.
I was afraid. I admit it, I was afraid before I launched into the water. But now I was really afraid. I felt tired. I felt worse than tired. I felt fatigued. Think about this, fatigue is worse than being tired. Being fatigued, there is no energy there to do what you want. I was almost spent. I stopped a briefest of moments to see if I was going to make to my boat. I shouldn’t have stopped. It froze me up with what I can’t even explain as horror. It was beyond that. It was the fear of knowing you could die.
I saw my boat was 15 feet away. But it was still moving. It seemed the same 15 feet I was from it 50 yards ago was the same 15 feet I couldn’t close the entire time I chased it.
What I’m about to tell you are the very thoughts I had. To this day I remember them vividly. “I’m 15 feet away. I have so little in me, if I don’t make it in this last dash, I’ll just go under.” And in the time I took to rationalize this, the boat was another 10 feet away. I knew it was over. At least the boat made that decision for me. I was so afraid. I was beyond terrified. I was now 75 feet out to sea in some very deep water. I yelled with what I had in me, “Help!” I saw Keith and I saw Earl. I wanted help. I looked to my right towards the Lewis Ferry. Nothing. I saw boats far away. Far away. There was no one to save me. I had very little time to think. “Help.” I knew they didn’t hear me.
I somehow quickly resigned myself to accept death. This is no joke. I remember thinking and I will remember until the day I die, what I felt and thought in those moments. I recall struggling to stay afloat and first thinking, “This is how it ends. My life came to this moment? Why?” With hardly any time left, and I was thinking fast, I remember thinking, “I never found love.” I remember thinking, “I’ll see my brother soon.” I remember thinking as my train of thought rushed at quantum speed, “I love you mom and dad.” And my very last thought was this, “I want to watch the light as long as I can as I go under.” I had a vision in my mind before I went under of what I’d see. I’d see a dot of light above me as I sank down. Because I was just in that moment about to give up and let me self sink as I just didn’t have anything in me to keep me up.
Arms grabbed me violently. It was Keith. To this day he knows I will never be able to thank him. He saved my life. Very few friends can know this appreciation. It wasn’t over though. Keith tells me, because at this point things became harder for me to remember, that I was struggling too much with him. I was beginning to make it hard for him too, and he was going to punch me and try and knock me out. I think I would have been almost impossible for him to bring in. And then the second miracle happened. Arms grabbed me. It wasn’t Earl and we hadn’t come any closer to shore. It was a young couple in a small Boston Whaler. The boyfriend lifted me up over the bow into the front of his boat. I flopped into the boat with absolutely no energy in my body. I was alive, but lifeless and limp. My legs, my arms my neck just rolled over and about me. My lips mustered the words... “You saved my life ...you saved my life.” I recall them both saying, “Your OK.” and I know I answered them like this, “No, you don’t... understand. You saved my life.”
It seemed no time they brought me to shore. Earl met them at the side of the boat. Instructing them to recover my boat. They stood me up in the surf, and I slammed face first into the sand. I had no strength, no energy. I had nothing inside me to move me. I could only lay there with my face in the sand crying thankful to be alive.
Later Earl and Keith were talking about all. I remember Earl recounting what they had seen from the shoreline. “No Keith, he’s really in trouble” Because Keith had been laughing at the time not taking what was happening serious. He was taking photos thinking I was OK. The second he realized I was in trouble, he threw himself into the surf after me. I’ve always remembered this, and will never forget it.
That day I sat in silence as they guided the boat back to the docks in Lewis. I recall vowing to myself that I’d not seek a woman anymore for love. I remember thanking my God for life and I remember thinking, “My life is for me to appreciate. No woman will ever appreciate me, or what I’ve been through. They’ll never be grateful for my existence and I need to remember that. The only person to give you happiness Lars, is you.” Until I married, I was able to be happy on my own. I’ve since my divorce come to remember that day I almost died, and I’ve come to terms with knowing that my happiness was and always will be based on what I do with my life for myself. Of course the solution to living alone is more complex than reflecting on what it means to be alive in the first place. But that day still lives with me. It did happen. I did change that day. Over time I lost touch with that appreciation for life. My love for my children really had become my reason for staying healthy or not taking chances with my life. A few years ago I had to fly a few times and once it was alone. My son Declan was 5 years old at the time and I was very upset that I was flying to Tampa Florida alone. If I had died, my son would never see me again. He wouldn’t have a father to play baseball with, or guide him through so many of life’s challenges. This may sound sappy, but I really had a hard time with flying as it seemed a time I couldn't control my fate. I used to be a daredevil, fearless. Having children made me mortal. I wanted to live, not for me but for someone else greater than myself, someone that needed me. That day off of Cape Henlopen changed the way I thought forever in a similar way. It put things in perspective. Until I had children, I knew I was damn lucky to be on this planet. It humbled me, and gave me a vengance for living.
It’s why when I did marry; I appreciated my wife more than anything. My life has been something I have not taken for granted and the things I have had happen good to me would not have been possible had I died in the Delaware Bay that day.
I hope if you have read this story, you understand I’m a guy that is really just a bit different for what happened. My appreciation for life changed that day. So when you think I come off as too rah-rah about life in my blog and think I’m being phony in my zest for the little things in life. Don’t doubt me. It’s why I’m such an excellent father. It’s why I tried so hard to keep my marriage together. It’s why I value friends. It’s why I’m so stuck on ethics and morals and virtue.
No I’m no perfect. I’m sure as hell no boy-scout. But I do think I’m better than a lot of men that walk this earth. I think I’m worth being remembered, even if it is only by my own sons. And they will learn in life that every little thing matters. That the life they have could have never been and that they too should smell the roses, and appreciate every day at its fullest.
That one day in my life changed who I am.
