Hot tarmac scorches our eager feet as we scuttle down towards the sand. Me on one end and Mike on the other of his two-man rubber dinghy. Vinegar invades my nostrils as we nip past the kiosks. Negotiating the concrete steps with our ready-inflated vessel high above our heads, a gust knocks my salt-stained Air Jordan cap onto the ground. “Wait!” I say half-giggling and stooping awkwardly to get it still being pulled along by Mike.
Eventually, we get to the water. It’s August, but it still ain’t warm in there. We wade out and take some sharp breaths especially when the frigid liquid gets above our waistbands. When deep enough we clamber aboard and begin rowing out to sea using our arms as oars. We commit to reaching the yellow five-knot marker and make it no problem. Like that scene in Gattaca, we don’t save anything for the way back.
Somehow, we get a puncture. We’re going down. Slowly, but we’re definitely going down. We tease each other with imaginings of what lurks beneath. It’s like the final scene from Jaws when Brody and Hooper are making their way ashore. Mike is in the water pulling. I am in the boat clinging on as it slowly submerges.
We make it back in the end, but there were to be no more dinghy adventures that summer.
Lovely memoir, Tobias. I know very well the feeling of the ‘frigid liquid’ and excitement; Brazil is usually very warm but the Atlantic Ocean is always very cold. The cold sensation comes as a warning… (which I rarely paid attention to)
Haha. This was great – I like the chaos and a feeling of spontaneous fun that comes with doing something like this with your mates. Rough and ready. A lark.
It reminded me of times spent with my uncle in Torbay – in his shitty dingy trying to catch mackerel – always ended in disaster but some of my happiest memories!
I wonder what it was that moved you enough to write this down? Please share!
Ha! Thanks Ross. It was a personal response to Marcela’s piece about the sea. I could have written many others, like rock-jumping down by the pool at Shoalstone for example. I’m not sure why this one struck me. But also, i have been thinking a lot about home recently as I haven’t been able to visit for more than 18 months now and also I’ve been imagining a permanent existence outside London somewhere closer to home. Probably this combination of factors brought these memories to the fore.
Perhaps we should hear more about your mackerel escapades. Lol!