Water Sports
For a couple of seconds, I bucked and danced at the end of my line. I was like a rag doll shaken by a giant.
Was it a great white shark, twisting and turning me from side to side, like a bulldog with a rat in its jaws?
I couldn't see what was happening. It was dark, and air bubbles kept exploding around my face mask.
Don't panic! I told myself. Don't panic!
I tried to think it through. I didn't feel razor-sharp teeth cutting through my wet suit. So it wasn't a shark.
Don't panic. Don't panic.
The water was choppy. I struggled to hold on. If I bailed, I was done for. The coming wave would suck me in and spit me out the back after it had raked me across the reef. No one would be pulling me out of the waves here. There might not be a lot of me left to even pull out.
The wind was a shrieking monster behind us and Jeopardy was barely in control, surfing down steep waves with an eerie roar as the water rushed under her hull. Every so often, a wave came at us beam on—sideways—rolling us dangerously to one side. I'd been out in all kinds of weather, but I'd never seen waves as steep as these. "It's nuts," I said flatly. I raised my voice so that she'd be able to hear me over the screaming wind and the crashing water. "And it's only going to get worse..."
The Sharks called us "pond scum."
I breathed deep, like I always did before a race, filling my nose with the smell of chlorine. The Sharks were about to see that this pond scum could swim.
