Personal Narrative Essay

The boat departed at thirteen hundred hours exactly. As I stepped onto the colorful, traditional Maldivian boat my thoughts began to run wild. As the boat began its thirty-minute course, I also began to think about all the things that could go wrong. For example, I began to think about how a great white shark would come up from the dark unknown and swallow me whole or bite my leg off. My thoughts were interrupted by the guide shouting,

As shown in “Rogue Wave” by Theodore Taylor, the author writes about the main character being passed out in the pitch black galley, of a flipped over ship, with only a 3-foot air pocket. In the story, the main character, Scoot is stuck and unconscious. Her oldest brother, Sully, is trying to help her, but he can’t get the doors open. In the story, Taylor writes, “ The water would slowly and inevitably rise until the air pocket was only six inches; her head would be trapped between the surface of the water and the dirty bilge” (7). The two characters took a risk by going too far out and now they put Scoots life in danger. In comparison, the article, "Parents of Rescued Teenage Sailor Abby Sunderland Accused of Risking Her Life" by Paul Harris, the author writes about this teenage girl who set out to sail around the world by herself. Her ship was hit by a rogue wave and now critics are accusing her parents of risking her life. In the article, Harris states, “The vessel was apparently pounded by gigantic waves that had destroyed it’s mast, which in turned knocked out her satellite communications equipment” (20). Abby decided to risk her life to accomplish her dream of sailing around the world by herself. As shown in both texts, both talk about how great danger can happen when accomplishing your

While walking in there were many rocks on the ocean floor that shifted as i stepped on them, the rocks were also painful while holding a board. Once we got deep enough we set the board up so we could begin learning the basics of paddleboarding on the ocean. When we got on the boards we had to start on our knees so that we would have more balance before trying to stand up. After I felt sturdy, I slowly began to stand while rocking side to side, gaining my balance and trying not to fall off the board in front of everyone at the beach. I gained my balance by using the paddle to help me. We then started to paddle up and down the beach. As I paddled for a long period of time it became easier to move and maneuver on the board. I also saw a turtle slowly emerge with its head out of the water and as me and my uncle approached closer to it, the turtle submerged and then dived. I watched it as it disappeared into the depth of the ocean becoming a darker figure and then it was gone. After a while of paddle boarding we finally took a break and decided to call it a day, drinking a cold refreshing drink and enjoying the

Also, if a teen goes sailing by themselves, many things could go wrong, like somethings could break, something could fall out of the boat, or someone could get trapped in the boat. In the short story “Rogue Wave” Scoot had gotten trapped under the deck and was sinking every minute. In the story, it says that the doors were jammed and there was only very few ways out from the inside unless they had tools. It also says that “the bow submerging and the boat going

While my friends paddled away, Sophia and I were blown around by the wind, and wouldn’t get to the island in the predicted time window. We stopped at a dock and quickly were able to switch positions, so I was in the front of the boat, and sophia was in the back. This helped a lot but, we were coming upon a part of the route where we had to travel past an area where two islands allowed strong winds to come through. We paddled hard, not caring about the calluses or sore arms, just trying to get where we needed to be. Once our boat passed the channel of wind, we paddled our way past the choppy water and found our way to the island shore where Liam and Ethan were waiting. They helped us unpack and tie up the boat, when our counselor noticed a broken part of the boat. The yoke or middle beam of the boat was broken, which he explained, was extremely dangerous, and most likely why it was so hard to get to the island.

When a person boats, it’s hard not to get caught up in the scene.“You can see the shore, it’s beautiful, you can get caught up in the color of the water and the dolphins and the birds, and you feel so much a part of all of it. If you get caught up in the wonder, you forget this place can also kill you.” The story, Rogue Wave, is a good example of that. Two Florida teens were boating and it was a beautiful day. Out of nowhere the wall of water took down their ship. That’s what can happen if you’re at the wrong place at the wrong

Today was the last day of my field trip to Catilina island. I was going kayaking that day. I was on a rocky beach. I could here the waves crushing agisnt the rocks as we where getting ready to go out to sea on the kayaks. The sea breeze stung my face when I looked into it. We had to put on water shoes to keep our feet from getting cuts on the rocks. The shoes did not do a very good job of keeping our feet from hurting, altho they did stop us from getting cuts. The hardest part was getting the kayaks to the shore. They were about 48 to 58 feet from the shore. It was hard because we could not drag the kayaks to the shore. After we got the kayaks to shore we sat in our kayaks ready to go out to sea. This felt surprising to me as it was a new

Have you ever been on a boat in the open waters of the ocean? Fourteen year old David Alspeth in the book The Voyage of the FROG by Gary Paulsen is in a situation like this …

On my way to a hunting expedition with my friend, I had heard a noise that intrigued me. I decided to investigate due to being off the coast of a small island that sailors and travellers had dubbed “Shiptrap Island”. The intense fog made seeing the island under normal circumstances impossible, so I attempted to find a better vantage point. In hindsight, climbing on the railing of the yacht most likely caused me to fall overboard. If falling had been avoided, then this ordeal would have never been capable of happening. I shall look into constructing far more improved safety bars on yachts in the near future. After accidentally abandoning ship, I swam towards the direction that I believed

I should have never ever even had the idea of going in the ocean but… of course I just had to go in. I would have never imagined the horrors I was about to experience. All these thoughts keeping racing through my mind. What do I do? How can I escape? Will I live? I’m trying so hard to keep calm but that’s a little hard when there is a gigantic shark trying to kill me.

Even though I had crew members helping me to twist me in the other path, it didn’t work at all I couldn’t move I am terrified, fear took over me, I can’t beat it, it is so tough. Argh! I collided with the berg a massive rip torn parallel across my bulk, I feel like something went straight through my heart. The sound of the piercing through my heart shattered the night air, I began almost immediately to sink under; I began to take on water instantaneously. Several passengers reported hearing and feeling a strange quivering on the ship. Not only have I hit the burg I have caught on fire.

Adventure and risks are not a part of my life. The boat’s captains included five men. Each man had a beard and browned skin from all their time in the sun. Sunglasses rested on each of their eyes, shielding them from the bright, hot sun. The boat engines loud roar came to a stop, only the waves crashing against the boat made a sound. The oldest of the five men spoke first. He lifted a crooked, dark finger and held it over the left side of the boat and exclaimed in a gruff voice, “The cage is over there and you will need to swim in 15 yards of free water to get to it. If the sharks come at you just hit their nose.” Looks of terror graced every traveler’s face. The looks didn’t fade until another one of the boat’s crew spoke up telling us that the older man played that joke on every tour group. I studied the man

I knew nothing about kayaking. Neither did the rest of my family. In the matter of maybe 15 minutes our kayak instructors, Matt and Amy educated us on how to paddle and keep the kayak afloat, we were then launched into the frigid ocean. No one knew exactly how far we would be paddling in this vast open water that seemed to engulf us all. In the beginning, I was being very precise with my newly learned skills, starting the oar at my feet and pulling it up to my hip. I was also precise on cutting the water correctly to save energy. Shortly after paddling which seemed like forever, we were only halfway to our destination. Amy yelled out, “The island is right up there,” by then I was ready for a break, my arms burned and my hips were stiff.

Everything was normal for about the first 10 minutes. Then all of a sudden the boat started jerking until it finally just stopped right where we were. Lake Superior is home of more than 6,000 sunken vessels, and we happened to be floating right above one which can be slightly unnerving when your ship isn’t working. My grandfather was the first to do anything, he got up and went to try to figure out what was wrong. To make a not so long but boring story short, he had no idea what was wrong with the the motor which was impressive on the motor’s part to hide the damage from someone like my grandfather, who knew a lot about boats.

After hours of practice, I managed to sail as the adrenaline surged through my body. The wind whipped my face, and I continued trying to move faster. Before I could process what happened, I was back in the water trying to grab the board. It seemed impossible to be able to windsurf without falling every thirty seconds--proof of my inability to windsurf. Falling was inevitable, but accepting that I fell seemed much more difficult than I expected.