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Marvin Dansie
My wife and I were with friends at a small beach resort on the gulf side of the Yucatan Peninsula, a trip that we had been looking forward to for years.
The trip started out great, but then it started to rain. It was the third night of our stay before we got a break in the rain, it was not that it had been a particularly heavy rain, but it had been constant.
I thought I would take advantage of the break in the weather to hurry over to the visitor’s center that was about a quarter of a mile away to see if I could get some information about the surrounding area. It was about five o’clock in the afternoon and we had dinner plans with our friends at seven. I decided it would be quicker to go by myself and took one of the local suicide taxies to the center.
I had only been in the center for about five minutes before it started to rain again, this time with a bit more intensity. It rained pretty hard for what seemed to be about a half hour before it lightened up. I had waited out the rain on the little covered deck of the center. While I was there I noticed that I could see the back of the hotel that we were staying in and that there seemed to be a concrete sea wall that ran past the visitor center and hotel.
I had not realized that darkness comes so early and quickly this close to the equator. I thought that if walked back to the hotel across the seemingly open space between the visitor center and the hotel it would probably take me less than ten minutes, but the sun had gone down and it was getting dark.
I could see the lights around the hotel and the adjacent restaurant. I quickly made my way to the sea wall and followed it toward the hotel. The light was fading and it was getting hard to see. At the edge of the grassy area I could see the top of the sea wall, it was about a foot across and light colored. I realized I better hurry before it got completely dark. The grassy area was muddy and it had started to rain again.
I started to jog, you know the way you would run when you are not too sure of your footing. I could still make out the short coarse grass that seemed to cover most of the area, but all the rain had made a lot of puddles and I never knew how deep they were going to be. I was trying to hurry, when suddenly I seemed to fall through the ground.
It took me a moment to realized what was happening. I seemed to be entangled in something, something that had the strong odor of hydrogen sulfide. Then I felt the chill of the water tugging on my legs. The rain had caused a small stream (that normally ran through an out fall in the sea wall) to flood. When I had looked at the area from the visitors center I should have seen the stream bed, but the out fall had became blocked by all the flood debris (or maybe it was just over whelmed by all the rain) and the water had risen to the height of the sea wall, the surface was covered by floating aquatic plants that had been dislodged from the stream bed. As I tried to free myself from the clinging mat of weeds I could feel myself being dragged toward a breach in the sea wall by the water flowing below. I felt for the sea wall, hoping to pull myself out, but the top of it had been eroded away and a few inches of water was running over it. I could barely make out the main part of the breach about six feet away. I don’t know how deep it went, but it was about six or eight feet across and I suddenly became aware of the dull roar of the water rushing through. I knew I was about to die.
It was one of those moments when your life flashes before your eyes. I wondered how long it would be before they found my body. I felt anguish for my wife as she waited for the husband that would never return. Why had I chosen to walk back to the hotel? Would my body be washed out to sea or would it be buried by the sewage polluted vegetation that was constricting me?
As the water pulled me closer to the breach I noticed that a whirlpool had formed and was sucking down the weedy vegetation. The weedy mat started to swirl around the whirlpool as its bits and pieces waited their turn to be dispatched in its vortex. As I was pulled toward the whirlpool I suddenly realized that I was moving upstream, caught in the powerful eddy that was causing the whirlpool. The thick weedy mat was disintegrating around me as parts of it disappeared down the vortex. The eddy caught me and flung me around the the vortex and I was suddenly on the other side of the breach. I felt the sea wall again. I started feeling around trying to find something to grab hold of. I could feel the water trying to drag me back to the whirlpool. Then I found it, a piece of exposed rebar in the sea wall. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to grab hold of and I gradually pull myself free of the water currents. I managed to pull myself along using the submerged top of the sea wall until I finally reached solid (or mostly solid) ground again.
As I staggered to my feet, I realized I was covered with mud and stinking bits of vegetation. As I stood there in the darkness and the rain I felt like such a fool. I knew I was lucky to be alive.
As I was standing there trying to figure out how I was going to explain all of this to my wife, I was startled by this annoying buzzing sound. I opened my eyes and I was looking at the ceiling of my own bedroom - it was Saturday morning and I knew I would be needing a nap in the early afternoon.
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at least you guys are out there! dorks or not.....~~~~~~~~
