Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover's Soul (13 page)

Then, as the ship crossed the South Pacific, a fire swept through the
Insiko
, killing one crewman, injuring another and gutting the entire engine room. All power and communications were lost. The ship was at the mercy of the currents. For twenty-one days, Chin-Po and his crew huddled on the deck searching for passing vessels, until a passing cruise ship, the
Norwegian Star,
spotted them and transferred the starving crew to safety.

But the rescue ship had overlooked one member of
Insiko
during the confusion of the rough-seas transfer— the little dog, Hok-Get. By the time Captain Chi-Po and the others realized the mistake, it was too late to turn back. Hok-Get had been abandoned to the fate of the sea. Her prospects for survival were grim and might have been even worse had it not been for a tourist aboard the
Norwegian Star
who later reported the faint barking of a dog as the ship pulled away from the crippled
Insiko.

The next day, when the
Norwegian Star
stopped in Lahaina, Maui, the story of the little dog left behind found its way into the media spotlight. Flooded by donations from the public, the Hawaiian Humane Society launched a $50,000 effort to rescue Hok-Get. The air-and-sea search spanned three days and covered 14,800 square miles, but with no sign of the vessel, the
Insiko
was presumed sunk, and the rescue effort was called off. The Humane Society declared Hok-Get lost at sea.

A week later, the fishing vessel
Victoria City
made radar contact with an unidentified ship about 400 nautical miles south of the island of Kauai. The description to the Coast Guard of “a darkened ship with no lights that appeared to be adrift” matched that of
Insiko
. Once again the Humane Society was bombarded by requests and donations from animal lovers from the United States, South Africa, Great Britain, Canada and Brazil. The search to find the
Insiko
and Hok-Get was resumed. Once again the rescue teams were unable to relocate the drifting vessel.

Then, by chance, a Coast Guard search-and-rescue plane spotted a ship drifting 260 miles east of Johnston Island atoll. As the plane moved closer, the pilot spotted a little white dog running frantically back and forth across the deck of the bridge wing. The crew collected pizza and granola bars from their box lunches, placed them in an empty sonar buoy and, with some careful maneuvering, managed to drop the food onto the deck.

Aerial images of the excited little dog running across the deck of the burned-out tanker were broadcast worldwide. A week later, a tugboat called
American Quest
reached the
Insiko
. The tugboat had been called on to keep the
Insiko
from drifting onto a nearby ecological preserve, where it threatened to run aground and spill more than 60,000 gallons of diesel fuel. The rescue crew found Hok-Get, starved and frightened from her twenty-five-day odyssey at sea, hiding under a pile of tires near the bow of the ship. The lonely and fearful chapter of her life aboard the
Insiko
had finally come to an end.

When the
American Quest,
with
Insiko
in tow, finally docked at Pier 24 of Honolulu Harbor, Hok-Get emerged in the arms of a rescuer to a red-carpet welcome of supporters and media from around the world. Her tail wagging and a bright red flower lei around her neck, Hok-Get was the picture of happiness, blessings and good fortune that captain Chin-Po had foretold. The little dog had brought out the generosity and compassion of the world with her resilience and spirit, proving that every life, no matter how small, deserves to be cherished.

Jon L. Rishi

What Do You See?

Gary loved his job at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California. He was an onstage presenter and narrated the wondrous exhibits in some of the largest and most interesting habitats in the aquarium. One day in July, he was speaking to a large group of guests about the Tropical Pacific exhibit. The exhibit, made to look like an exotic lagoon, was home to thousands of brilliantly colored fish from the coral shores of the islands of Palau. Gary’s voice, as always, was soothing and pleasant. He welcomed visitors to a habitat that contained, “. . . three hundred and fifty thooouuusand gallons of real sea water. The water this afternoon is a balmy seventy-eight degrees . . . just as these magnificent creatures like it.”

With poetic detail, he described the beautiful swimming patterns of the zebra sharks and the black-tipped reef sharks. He pointed out a male and female Napoleon wrasse and noted, “Just look at him with those gorgeous big ol’ blue lips and her with the fiery peachy-yellow ones. What a
lovely
couple!” He talked about the porcupine fish and the strange defensive habits of the puffer family to which it belonged, then segued into a description of the trigger family of fishes and the humu humu nuku nuku apuaa of Hawaii.

A pretty young lady in her twenties had been standing next to Gary. She seemed to be hanging on his every word. Midway through the presentation, the woman leaned over and said to Gary, “I love listening to your voice. When you talk, I can picture the animals swimming around and moving through the coral.” Gary usually asked guests to hold comments until the end of the show, but the haunting manner of the woman seemed to catch him off guard. She was pretty, intelligent and seemed exceptionally interested in marine life. “I could listen to you forever,” the woman said. Gary was flattered. He thanked the woman for such a nice compliment, then went back to work.

After the presentation, Gary was answering questions about the exhibit when a man approached him. The man was full of compliments, too. He thanked Gary for such a beautiful presentation and asked him a couple of questions regarding the fish. Then he asked if Gary noticed anything unusual about the young lady who was talking with him a few moments ago. Gary said he did not. “That’s okay,” the man said. “A lot of people don’t notice. She’s my granddaughter—and she’s blind.”

Gary Riedel

Dolphin Seas

Original painting by Wyland © 2003.

4
OCEAN
WISDOM

A
ll is born of water; all is sustained by water.

Goethe

A Lesson from the Sea

Until I was fourteen I had never been far from my father’s farm. And because the only water close by was in ponds, the river and a small lake, I could scarcely imagine what a vast sea must be like. People said that sometimes when the wind came from the west, the fields of young wheat looked like waves, but I don’t think anyone where I lived knew what an ocean wave looked like.

Then my Aunt Harriet and Uncle Ted invited me to spend two weeks with them in Spring Lake, New Jersey. They had taken a house there for the summer and thought I would enjoy the shore.

I guess I’d become something of a trial at home because I had more attitude adjustments from my dad that year than you’d believe—maybe one of the reasons my parents so readily agreed to let me go away.

Before I knew it, I was standing on a wide beach looking at the great Atlantic Ocean for the first time in my life. I’d been so eager to see it that I talked my uncle into walking the short block to the beach before I was even unpacked.

It was not what I expected. The waves were easy and gentle, more like a lake, I thought. But the horizon seemed very far away and the air sure didn’t smell like Indiana. Just breathing made me feel a little light-headed and happy. “It’s just like a big lake,” I said.

“It’s quiet today,” my uncle said. “The ocean has many moods, though. This is just one of them.” I heard an odd kind of respect in his voice that I did not understand.

I waded into the water up to the limits of my rolled-up jeans and picked up a bright blue piece of glass. It was frosted and very smooth. My uncle told me that the sea and sand did that. “Powerful forces,” he said. “I don’t want you in the water without one of us with you.”

“I can swim,” I said, more to ease his concern than to brag. “Mom says I loved the water from the day I was born.”

“Most people who drown can swim and love the water,” he said. “Let’s go to the house, get you unpacked, have some lunch, and then we can come down to the beach in the afternoon and get you initiated.”

We did that. I don’t think many things in my life have been as much fun as swimming in the Atlantic summer surf. Day after day, the sky was clear, the waves easy, the water just warm enough. I was at the beach as soon as I could get an adult to go with me and stayed long after they were ready to go back to the house. Before long I met three guys my own age, and we began to hang out almost every day to body surf.

In the evenings I sat on the porch with my aunt and uncle and drank iced tea or lemonade. Sometimes we sang the kind of old songs you sing in summer camp. Sometimes we took a drive to Atlantic City to see the boardwalk. But mostly it was the ocean that had my attention. My uncle had rented a small star-class skiff and began to teach me how to sail it.

I was a natural, he soon said. “You have a real feel for it. And you learn fast. I only have to tell you once and you’ve got it.” After a day at the beach, on or in the water, I went to sleep every night listening to the steady, reassuring sound of the surf. I thought of the ocean as my friend and the source of more fun than I’d ever known.

Then one morning I awoke to a dull, gray sky and a noise I’d never heard before. I walked to the end of our street as soon as I got up. The sea was just beyond a low retaining wall, and it looked much more exciting than I’d ever seen it. The waves were big and dark, and the whitecaps were dazzling. I could see three boys I’d met on the town beach already in the water. They were laughing and screaming when a large wave overtook them. They body surfed all the way into the shore. It looked like it was going to be a great day.

At breakfast I asked, first thing, when we could go to the beach. My uncle had some things to do and said we would go in about an hour. I asked if I could go ahead because my friends were already in the water.

“You better wait for me this time,” my uncle said. “I won’t be long. The sea is a little high today. You’ll have to be careful.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go down and get some sun and wait for you.”

“Lots of screen,” he said. “You can burn even under those clouds. And do not—I repeat—do not go in the water.”

Of course, the ocean was irresistible. I knew it as my friend. I’d had the best time of my life sailing on it, swimming in it, dodging its waves, feeling the strength of it lift my body high on the swell. I tried to wait for my uncle, but the pull of the sea was too much for me and I went in to join my friends.

We were all excited and constantly looking for the seventh wave, which we all imagined to be bigger than the rest. The trouble, of course, was where did you begin to count? So we picked the largest wave in a course and counted from there. In about a half an hour we got it right and waded on wave six as far out as we dared go to catch wave seven.

And then it came. It seemed larger than anything I’d ever seen, rolling at us from across the great expanse of ocean. It rolled and threatened to cap and then just kept coming on. We all pointed at it, shouted at each other and got ready to either ride or duck it. I think I was still thinking about which to do when it hit.

I had turned broadside to it, and the great wave picked me up and tossed me on its crest like a cork. I bounced for what seemed a very long time, and then it threw me into its trough and pulled me under the water. I hit the sand bottom with my back, was rolled over and over, turned this way and that. Even though I had to get some air in the next few seconds, I could not tell which way was up. I forced my body toward the light. I broached the surface, gulped air and was once again pulled under and pounded down into the sand. The green water roiled around me, rolling and tossing me as though I were a pebble. I believed I was about to take the last breath I’d ever take.

My life did not flash before me, as people say it does, but my feelings did. I remembered countless joys at home that were more intense than I knew they were at the time. How I felt rolling in a raked pile of leaves, how the warm water of our pond felt on my skin, how my mother looked at me when she put a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table, how my father could not suppress his pride when I won a horse show. Small, ordinary things of great joy filled my mind, and I tried to turn my head once again toward the light.

But the sea seemed determined to keep me pinned to the sand like a wrestler trying for a win. I didn’t have strength left to fight it, and the moment I gave up, the sea picked me up once more and spit me out in shallow water.