Paddling was all I’d ever done.
My friend, Vanessa—if I could call her that—sat balancing for life on a sinking kayak in an island mangrove off the coast of Honduras, and I was trying to save her.
Earlier today, we’d rented bicycles, and mine broke along the journey.
I ran behind the others, waving the broken crank over my head.
“Wait!”
Nobody turned around.
I ran harder.
“Hey!”
They kept riding.
Eventually I stopped and walked back to town alone. By the time I returned, nobody seemed to have noticed I’d been gone.
Now Vanessa was in the water.
I grabbed a paddle.
~
We’d rented kayaks that afternoon—two boats for four people—and paddled into the swampy interior of the island.
Emily and Rachel didn’t notice that their boat had cracks running along its sides, filling it with water and pulling it slowly down until we paddled a mile into the mangrove, and their boat capsized.
All four of us clambered into the surviving kayak.
It, too, began sinking under our combined weight.
Vanessa looked at the kayak.
Water sloshed over the sides.
“I weigh the least. If somebody has to stay in this thing, it should probably be me.”
Nobody argued.
I threw her the life jacket.
“Put this on.”
She pulled it over her head while I steadied the kayak.
“Go,” she said.
I paddled for shore.
Emily and Rachel were already running toward the owner.
“Your boat is sinking. Our friend is still out there.”
He stared toward the mangroves.
“A motorboat. You have one, right?”
He shook his head.
Then he called for his daughter.
She came running from the house.
Fifteen years old. Maybe ninety pounds.
The owner pointed toward the water.
She climbed into another kayak.
I looked back toward Vanessa.
Then at the girl.
I hopped in with her.
~
When we reached Vanessa, her boat had disappeared beneath the water. Only enough remained above the surface for her to kneel on. She looked strangely peaceful as she used her double-bladed paddle to steady herself against the wind and waves.
When she climbed into our boat, relief crossed her face.
I had no energy left for Spanish, or protest, when her daughter tied the sunken kayak to the back of ours with a length of rope.
We turned toward shore.
Vanessa tried to paddle, but after the last hour she could barely lift the blade.
Her daughter sat in front of me.
She had spent most of the trip across the mangroves turning us in circles. Now she stopped paddling altogether.
I kept going.
One mile.
Fifteen-mile-per-hour headwinds.
Choppy water.
And the dead weight of the kayak dragging behind us.
My strokes shortened. I lost ground between each one. My hands went numb. My arms followed.
I stopped thinking about the shore.
I stopped thinking about how long we’d been out there.
There was only the next stroke.
Then the next.
And the next.
Eventually, the bottom scraped.
I dragged myself onto the beach and collapsed.
~
On the ferry to the mainland, they talked about it.
The three of them sat together in one row. I sat across the aisle.
Vanessa laughed about balancing on the sinking kayak. Emily retold the rescue. Rachel corrected her.
I just watched the island disappearing through the window.