“We’re all going to the British Virgin Islands for a week, we even get to stay on our own ship!” My mother exclaimed to the family. We all responded very happily to this, it’s not everyday you get to live on a boat. So we traveled on over.

Once situated in our boat we went snorkeling and saw all these beautiful fish of varying shades and colors. Just imagine being engulfed in a school of fish, even if it’s for a moment, the memory will stay with you. But you don’t want to read about swimming with fish, you want to know how I ended up on a stranded island. Well, that story is quite weird and somewhat hilarious, so I’ll tell you. But just as a warning, it’s not some survival story, it’s a story about an American family stuck on an island.

“Let’s go to that island, we’ll just take the dinghy and leave the boat here.” My dad pointed towards an island nearby. My family all gathered on the dinghy with our life jackets on and a couple of beers and sodas for us all. I hated those life jackets, but my mom made me wear it anyway. My blue one made me feel all fat and it hugged my neck slightly. 

We soon arrived on the island. After parking the dinghy high up on the beach we decided to travel around the perimeter of the island. On one side there was a giant cliff, that made me feel very uneasy, but the cool sea breeze calmed me. We arrived back at the dinghy within 15 minutes. After the little excursion we obviously grew bored and wanted to get back. Sadly, it was not that easy to get off the island. There were 20 foot waves crashing in, even the wake was enough to almost knock me over. It could have made a grown man stumble.

My dad, being the man he was, decided that it was safe for us to get in the dinghy and just cruise on over those waves. My dad’s idea was for him to push the dinghy into the water and have my brother jump in and then me. It obviously did not go as smoothly as planned. He pushed in the dinghy in and my brother jumped in with ease. I was always jealous of his monkey-like agility, it would’ve came in handy. I was not so lucky, I ran in too late, causing the wave to knock me over and under the dinghy. I could literally see it above me in those frantic moments. There was about a foot and a half space of water between the dinghy and the ground.