Lessons From Nearly Drowning

As my daughter and I were being swept out to sea by the powerful undercurrent, there was one thing on my mind.

Despite spending a lot of time in my life looking at crap on the internet…

Why hadn’t’ I googled :  “How To Survive A Riptide”

Let me backtrack a little …

Not wishing to play the sympathy card here, but late 2016, I was going through a bout of mental health feckery. 

It was a proper shitty time.

I’d decided the best course of action was to get away with the family to Lanzarote for some fun and relaxation.

It really didn’t go to plan.

There had been a severe storm for the first 3 days and we were confined to the hotel.

On the fourth day the storm was gone, so my daughter and I wanted to catch up on lost fun-time  and went to the beach. 

But the thing is, the sea was still rough from the storm. 

I mean really rough.

Whites of the breaking waves as far as the eye could see.

Not a single boat on the horizon.

Alarm bells should have been ringing…

But if they were – I ignored them.

After all, we’re on holiday!

Besides, it was good fun getting knocked about by the big waves as they crashed into the shore.

And we certainly weren’t the only people messing about in the surf that day…

But as my daughter and I sat in the shallows catching our breath from a particularly big wave, a strange thing occurred…

She started gliding away from me. 

“What are you doing?” I yelled to her,.and tried to grab her hand..

Then the sea grabbed me.

It pulled us quickly ..

The force of the water was immense. 

I instinctively knew we were in a riptide.. 

Trouble is, the only knowledge I had of them was what I’d seen on grim news reports.

All I could think was ….

People die in riptides.

Not gonna lie, we were both terrified.

Already exhausted from being knocked about by the surf minutes earlier, we frantically tried to swim against the current.

But it was too powerful.

If only we knew, the Number 1 rule of how to survive a riptide —

“Don’t Swim Against The Riptide”

Oops.

And Number 2 — Don’t Panic

Oh dear. 

We’d failed Riptide 101.

For future reference, the 3rd Rule is to float calmly with the riptide until it subsides.

Then swim back to shore, in a diagonal direction, away from the path of the current.

Of course, all this requires you to have passed Rules 1 + 2 with flying colours and as established, we’d failed them miserably.

Once the riptide had finished with us .. we were tired, disoriented and scared.

We were a long way from the shore and had no chance of swimming back in the rough sea in our exhausted state.

There were some cliffs and rocks nearby which offered a potential escape.

But the waves were crashing hard into them and I feared if we tried to climb them …we’d end up getting knocked unconscious by a wave.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place…literally.

There was only one thing for it.

We needed to ask for help.

The thing is, even though we were in a situation where our lives were in danger…

Asking for help… felt completely unnatural. 

I mean, I should be able to get us out of this situation safely myself!

And I really don’t want to put people out.

My daughter reminded me… 

Dad we’re gonna f**** drown out here!

Good point, well made. Mind your language darling.

We called for help.

People on the shore seemed to hear our cries and were having a good look at us.

But that’s all they did …Look.

Maybe they thought we were playing some kind of prank and didn’t want to look silly by offering some form of help.

Fortunately, there were 2 heroes on the beach that day 

Peter from Croatia and Bruno from Albania… 

These guys didn’t know each other, but hastily formed a rescue mission, making their way round the base of the cliff to near where we floundered in the rough sea.

The thing is, these guys hadn’t waited for us to start calling out for help.

Having seen us being dragged out to sea, it was obvious to them, we were in serious trouble.

The rescue went on for what seemed like an eternity and was touch and go at points.

But to cut a much-longer-story short, the end result was these guys somehow managed to pull both of us up onto the safety of the rocks.

Of course we are indebted to these two strangers from afar.

So asides from learning the “Rules of the Riptide”…  

I was reminded of 2 things that day:

When you’re in trouble..screw the ego — Ask For Help

It doesn’t matter whether it’s work , your mental health,

or something as dramatic as being caught in a riptide…

At some points in life, we may struggle.

In these times, there’s nothing weak about asking for help.

As the great Stoic and powerful Roman Emperor Marcus Aruelius said :

“Don’t be ashamed of needing help. You have a duty to fulfill just like a soldier on the wall of battle. So what if you are injured and can’t climb up without another soldier’s help?””

And the other?

If you see others in trouble — Offer Your Help 

This happens all too often. 

Someone slumped over in the street…

People walk by, assuming they’re drunk. (not that should make any difference whatsoever)

Someone at work, or on social media, may look or sound like they are struggling …

Don’t ignore them. 

Ask if they’re alright. 

It can make a huge difference.

The worse that’s gonna happen is they’ll say mind your own business.

If you ignore them and you later hear something bad happened..that will really hurt..

So we do what’s right.

And the added bonus?

Helping others feels good..