Stratton is famous for its currents. Only one person has died here in the past decade, but before the lifeguard system had been developed, the numbers were much higher. The strength of the current was due to the canal, which creates a massive rip tide, so the beach has to have permanent supervision during the warmer months.
In the distance, I could see Samantha Creeme dragging her life surfboard to the waters edge. I instinctively ran down the lower beach to where Graham was standing. He had a surprising look on his face. It seemed to have no expression at all. He was obviously in a lot of shock. I called to him ‘Graham, Graham! Calm down, everything is going to be alright.’
But I could tell it wasn’t. It looked as though Samantha had also gotten herself into trouble. The winds were picking up and you could literally see the waves getting bigger and bigger. I knew that I had to do something. Graham was still in a fazed state, but his expression became one of despair as her could see the situation becoming worse by the minute. I turned and shouted in his direction, ‘We need to find something that will float and stand against those winds’ He gave me a nod. It looked as thought he wasn’t able to talk.
We both started to look around us frantically. I spotted a small wooden boat on the opposite side of the beach. I called to Graham and pointed at it. We both ran to it as fast as we could. As began to drag it down to the waters edge. Just as we reached the shore, I realised that we would need something to paddle, as there were no oars with the boat. Seeing as it was late summer, there had been many thunderstorms and luckily, large pieces of driftwood had been swept up onto shore. I tried to shout my idea to Graham, but I had to fight against the winds that were blowing in the wrong
Daisy Donald 10F
direction. I eventually had to get up very close to him, until he could properly hear me.
I ran around looking for a suitable piece of wood. I knew exactly what I was looking for. In my youth, I used to use large, thin, wide planks of wood, usually that had come from a side of a ship, and use them as ours for boats. There weren’t really many of that shape anymore, since their had been no recent ship wrecks, mostly pieces of trees that had fallen into the sea. But, after about five minutes of searching, I found two pieces of correctly sized wood.
I quickly ran back to Graham, who had been looking after the boat. I passed him one of the pieces of wood and we jumped into the boat. By this time, Samantha had reached Charlie. But, as I thought, it had become obvious that their was no simple way of them returning to shore safely as the tide was slowly moving out.
We started to paddle frantically, and we started to move quickly in the direction of Samantha and Charlie. This was the easy bit; the hardest part would be getting back.
We eventually reached their side, and immediately attempted to drag Charlie into the boat. This was harder than I thought. I had used much of my energy paddling, but I knew that I had to do this no matter what. I could see the strained expression on the fathers face. I found it easy to relate with, the fear of loosing someone close to you. I did not have any children myself, but my fiancé had been diagnosed with breast cancer a few years back, and I understood what thoughts must have been going through his mind.
As soon as we had lifted him out of his rubber dingy, it drifted away. I’m sure, if Charlie had not been the large boy that he was, he would have floated away much faster. I took off my fleece, and put in on him. He must have been freezing. The winds were much stronger now, and he only had an old pair of damp trunks and a rash vest on.
By this time, there was little room in the small wooden boat, and we all knew that all four of us would not be able to fit into it. Samantha insisted that she would be able to paddle back on her surfboard, as she was specially trained for this type of a situation.
The paddle back was much more strenuous than the paddle there, as this time we had to fight against the current. But something, I don’t know what, probably adrenalin, kept us moving on. It felt as though my arms were going to fall off, but all the time, I kept thinking to myself, ‘You have to keep moving on. Lives are at steak here.’
We finally reached the shore. Somebody must have seen what was going on, as when we reached the waters edge, a towel was immediately wrapped around each of us, and we were all taken off to an ambulance. I looked back from the top of the beach, as I remembered that Samantha must have still been fighting her way back against the waves. But, she was nowhere to be seen.
