Brushes With Death (or at least, serious injury), Part Deux

Perhaps some of you will remember that in June, I posted a "humorous" story about almost dying. If you want a recap, click on me, and I shall whisk you magically away to the past and you can catch up.

Now, I shall regale you all with a story much closer to our present time period. The original was ten years ago. This happened last August. Right after I got married. And this time, the onus of blame was squarely on my shoulders. Savor the flavor, kiddies, because I don't often announce my own complete idiocy to the world. But in this case, there's no escaping the fact that I was a complete effin' moron.

Jessie and I had decided to go on a catamaran cruse out to a cove. It was called either Pirates Cove or Cave. But basically, it was a place for pirates to hide back in the golden age of piracy. They'd anchor the catamaran and you could swim up to the cove, or you could go up to the little establishment on the top of the cliff, pay a buck, and jump in to the water.

See where this is going? No, you don't. Let me finish.

Jessie and I decided to just swim to the cave to check it out. This is where I had a very crucial lapse in judgment. If I did die, I wouldn't have blamed anybody for a scathing epithet of "He picked the wrong time to have a colossally large 'duh' moment." In hindsight, of course, it was crystal clear to me. But at the time, not so much. I wasn't even trying to be macho, I simply screwed the pooch.

I thought I could swim to and from the cove. I even turned down an offered life jacket. Why? What was the colossal "duh" moment that made me think I could do this? I thought that the water would shallow as we approached the cave. Can anybody tell me why this was such a stupid idea? I'll tell you. The cave was used by pirates to hide, right? Which means that the water leading up to it, and inside of it, had to be deep enough for a ships keel. Duh.

I get about halfway there, when I realize that if I don't turn back, I'll be in deep doo doo. I get halfway back to the catamaran when I realize I probably went about 10 feet too far towards the cave before turning back. My legs have become as useful as wet noodles, and I'm forced to rely on my arms to stay afloat, and to propel me towards the boat. I'm also starting to hyper ventilate from exertion, so I can't call out to the boat for assistance.

At this point, I don't remember much. I think I went in to "instinct mode," I hazily remember focusing in on the ladder rungs on the back of the catamaran, and willing myself towards them. Twenty feet became fifteen, which became ten. Right about here I remember much more, because at five feet...I was done. The tank was empty. I wasn't even taking in oxygen due to the severity of the hyper ventilation. I made what is best described as a last ditch flail towards the catamaran, and by sheer dumb ass luck, my hand caught the rung.

I managed to pull myself up, right at the same point a concerned sailor came to my aid. Had he not been looking at the back of the boat at that exact time, and my hand didn't catch the rung...well, I don't want to think about that. I caught my breath sitting on the ladder, and then sheepishly crawled to where Jessie and I had been sitting on the way over to figure out what went wrong. Wasn't very long before I realized that I went wrong.

I've done some stupid things in my time, but I'm pretty sure my complete lack of common sense in this situation is the top ranking incident of my life.