Mike Dixon

The boat was drifting at about one-and-a-half knots in a
north-westerly direction. He breathed a sigh of relief. The
boat was heading towards shore. With any luck he‟d see
land when the sun came up.
Day dawned and he hardly noticed. His fears had been of
sharks, hyperthermia, sunburn and dehydration. After fifteen
hours he‟d not seen a shark, he was cold and it was pouring
with rain. He reached for the fishing line and cast it over the
side. To his relief it soon touched bottom and the current
was in his favor.
Hours passed, the sun came out and he was no longer
cold. Trees appeared on the horizon. David saw them
through the haze of mucous that had built up around his
contact lenses. He fumbled for the fishing line and went
through the motions of measuring depth and current. The
weight hit bottom almost immediately. He looked at his
compass, played out the line and started counting. If he‟d
not been so tired he wouldn‟t have bothered. He was in shallow
water and the line was dragging to the side.
David recalled that currents did that when they approached
land. They couldn‟t run ashore so they turned.
Their next trick was to head back out to sea. He‟d imagined
himself cast up on a sandy beach but that wasn‟t going to
happen. The current wouldn‟t take him there and the wind
wouldn‟t blow him there. The inflatable was too low in the
water to be blown anywhere. His mind numbed and a wave
of nausea swept over him.
Fears of hyperthermia flooded back. He was overheating.
If he didn‟t do something he‟d be too weak to do anything.
His fingers yanked at the zip of his wetsuit. The jacket came
off and he loosened the straps holding the bottom in place.
His mind was made up. There was no point in staying where
he was.
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