SURFS UP!

Surfs Up!

DECEMBER 24, 1992; it was early Christmas Eve morning. Waking up at 3:30 a.m. on a cold winter morning with plans to take out my boat in sub-freezing temperatures would sound absurd to most people unless you were crazy, fearless, or a duck hunter. I was all three.

When leaving the house this morning with my duck boat in tow, the last thing I ever expected was exchanging blows with the Grim Reaper while dancing with the Devil amid an unannounced winter storm.

Arriving at the Faunce Landing boat ramp in Absecon, the Atlantic City skyline could be seen immerging over the dark open marshes, in the distant background. Glancing down to check my arrival time, the moonlight reflected onto my wristwatch allowing me to see the time.

 “Hmm…. It's already 5:30 am, and I’m running out of time. I’ve got less than two hours before sunrise. I better get in gear, and head out.”

I was limited on time, sunrise was approaching, and I needed to get into position. With little to no wind and temperatures dropping below freezing, I began breaking the ice away from the edge of the boat ramp, preparing to launch my small one-man duck boat into the icy waters of Absecon Creek. I then pulled my truck and trailer away, parking in a gravel lot along the roadway below a single streetlight.

As I waddled my way back to the boat in my rubber chest waders and a camo-printed parka, the crackling crunch of gravel below my feet echoed over the early morning quiet. Awkwardly I climbed over the side of the boat hull and sat on a square floatation cushion, started the engine, untied the boat, and began cruising into the unknown darkness.

THE MORNING SKY was filled with a brilliant array of stars and a bright crescent moon. Its reflection shimmered over the open waters helping me to navigate my way across the open bay.

 “The waters are calm. It’s going to be a great day. Now let's see if I can find that  prime duck hunting location.”

 The bite of the cold and crisp winter air had no mercy on me, stinging my cheeks and lips feeling like a thousand shards of broken glass as it blew across my face.

“O.K., this spot looks pretty good. The wind conditions are just right, and there’s plenty of tall grass to take cover and keep well camouflaged.”

 After a quick study of the wind conditions and maneuvering among a cluster of grassy islands, I set out my decoys, hunkered down, and camouflaged myself into the tall salt grass near Weakfish Island on the north edge of Mankiller Bay.

 For the next forty-five minutes, I patiently looked out into the darkness, sitting in complete silence waiting for sunrise to come. Embracing the quietness in a place of tranquility, and a place seemingly frozen in time, I was sandwiched among three contrasting worlds. A mile to the west, the faint glisten of lights reflected through the windowpanes of single-family homes in the small town of Absecon. Straight ahead was a world of environmental wonders filled with saltwater creeks, an open bay, and grassy islands. Bordered on the far outside edges were environmentally sensitive marshlands and the home to many wildlife and aquatic creatures. About a half-mile to the east, I could see the glow of Atlantic City with its bright and colorful lights glowing from its high-rise hotels and casinos. At the forefront, reaching way above the grassy marshlands was Harrah’s Hotel and Casino stretching into the sky much higher and brighter than the others. It appeared as if the entire city was afloat and ready to drift away into the Atlantic Ocean with its colorful lights drifting high above the city’s landscape, illuminating the night sky, mimicking the northern lights while reflecting its colorful image down onto the surrounding waters.

As the sun began to rise, the darkness slowly disappeared, and the world began to develop before my eyes like an old Polaroid photograph. The sun came out, the sky was clear, and the wind was almost non-existent. Although my morning duck hunt wasn’t as successful as I had hoped, the last thing that crossed my mind was packing up and heading home.

“What a quiet and peaceful morning. It couldn’t be better. I think I’ll kick back, and stay awhile.”

 After enduring several hours of the morning cold, it felt good to sit back and bask in the sun’s warmth enjoying some quiet time watching the wildlife, listening to the whistling of duck wings fly overhead, and the squawking of seagulls searching for clams and minnows.

THE WIND soon started to pick up, and the calm water surface broke into a sequence of eruptions, and the once smooth-as-glass water began to dance with white caps.

           Straight ahead, off in the distant sky, dark clouds begin to rise above the bay’s horizon consuming the bright blue skies and white puffy clouds.

“What’s with the dark clouds? The weather forecast called for clear and calm conditions.”  The darkening clouds caught me off guard.

“This doesn’t look good… and it’s headed in my direction. I better pack up and head home before the storm strikes.”

With Christmas Eve Church Services and our annual family gathering scheduled for this evening, it was going to be a long day and a late night. I needed to get out, now.

WITH LITTLE to no warning, the wintery storm surfed its way across the open bay and approached my grassy hideaway with lightning speed. The winds reached gusts of twenty to thirty miles an hour, and the water levels began to roll up and down into three-foot-high swells.

Directly into the wind, I begin crossing the bay in my small duck boat attempting to navigate the choppy waters while rolling over each swell and aiming for the boat ramp. Within ten more minutes and now halfway across the bay, the winds and icy rain from an unannounced winter storm had reached nearly forty-five mph, and the rolling swells of salt water had reached upwards of four to six feet in height. Amid the darkened sky, the hammering ice and rain mix continued to blow horizontally. The strong winds kept forcing my small boat to turn sideways, spinning me in a corkscrew motion as I reached the top of each swell. Twenty full minutes into my weatherly fight, the pounding waves are relentless and continue to crash over the top of me, quickly filling the boat's hull with ice water.

With no letup in sight, Mother Nature keeps beating down on me, repeatedly, trying her best to take me out. Then with another swift surge of ice water, Mother Nature like a prizefighter digs deep and swings, sending her most vicious blow so far. With a sudden blast of cold air and another crashing wave of salty ice water, she knocks me off my feet sweeping me overboard.

Fighting the sting of salt in my eyes and spewing water from my mouth, didn’t help with my stormy battle as I hung onto the side of a water-filled hull with a white-knuckle grip, keeping me from slipping away into the abyss.

“Hold on! Don’t let go! You can do this!” I kept repeating to myself.

I was completely soaked. My watertight waders and parka had ripped allowing the icy waters to engulf my body. The shallow bay waters continued to roll up and down as the storm stayed on course, tossing, and spinning me around like a piece of driftwood. With each swell tossing me into the air, I somehow managed to maintain focus on a small grassy island a few hundred yards ahead. After each new swell rising high in the sky came a sudden drop falling to a depth where the boat's hull nearly hit bottom, allowing my feet to sink into the soft, silky mud, gripping me at the ankles, inviting me to stay. With each drop, I’d push off in the direction of the small grassy island, and then, another quick upward thrust arrived as the next swell returned lifting me repeatedly, spinning me into the icy air like an ominous dance with death, repeating my teeter-totter water ride over and over again while fighting to hold on for nearly two hours.

“Give up! Give up! You’re too weak. You can’t do this. You're exhausted. You have no chance!” … “No! Don’t give up… Lauren and Christopher are home waiting for me! Don’t let go!”

My mind battles between giving up and getting up. I continue to fight from being sucked down into the belly of a stormy beast and sinking to the bottom of the soft, muddy floor of Absecon Bay.

After losing my bearings during my icy spin dance, I finally reached my island destination, exhausted, and stuck somewhere between Absecon Bay and Mankiller Bay. My resting destination was a small mud flat with minimal grass cover at three inches tall, providing zero protection from the wind. By all definitions, it surely wasn’t any dream vacation destination as advertised on TV. I was exhausted and somehow, I had mustered the strength to anchor the boat close to the island shoreline.

“I made it. I made it. I don’t believe it.”

 Huffing and puffing trying to catch my breath without sucking down more saltwater, I looked up trying to get my bearing.

“Where the hell am I? Over there is Atlantic City. There’s the bridge coming from Pleasantville. That must be Rte. 30, Absecon Boulevard. Where’s the boat ramp? — Oh, crap. I must have been blown too far off course in the opposite direction. I’ll never make it back. I can’t take the chance. Not from here. The highway is my closest option to get out.”

Reaching into the boat's hull, I removed several watertight containers and the fuel tank. With the winds still blowing beyond Forty mph and the air temperatures nearing the teens, heavy ice crystals have now formed across my body.

 “O.K., It’s not over yet. Suck it up, it’s just beginning. Get your head together. This isn’t the first time you faced danger. Think of all the training you had. It was for moments like this, so get a grip, you can do this.”

I began losing feeling in my arms and legs. The frostbite started cutting its teeth into my flesh, burning like a thousand razor blades slashing at my skin. I couldn’t help but feel as if I were oozing with hot red blood coming from each icy slash.

Desperate for any kind of warmth, I begin stripping down naked in the ice-cold temperature removing my ice-stiffened wet clothes.

 “Oh my god, it’s freaking cold! Hurry, hurry, just don’t panic!”

  In the hull of my boat, I reached for my emergency dry box, grabbed warm and dry clothing, and quickly got dressed. Immediately, I followed up with a full body wrap of black plastic trash bags, attempting to lock in what little heat remained in my body.

Desperation continued as I began fighting hallucinations and losing any sense of stable thinking. With no more feeling in my legs and the need for heat, even for just a second, my disjointed mind convinces me to begin dropping lit matches directly into the boat's fuel tank.

 “Come on. Just one sudden blast of hot air, that’s all I need.”

The strong freezing winds immediately extinguish the spark from each strike of the match, ending any hope of creating warmth. The boat remained resting along the island shoreline, filled with water, and twelve inches of mud settled at its bottom. The boat was now too heavy to navigate the stormy waters, eliminating any chance of escape.

Facing defeat with hypothermia setting in, I begin to pile up all my equipment.

“I’ll have to build a signal monument to mark my location.” I began stacking my dry box, floatation devices, decoys, and whatever else I could gather.

 “If I don’t get out of here, it will help someone find my frozen body; before the crabs, seagulls, and muskrats find me first.”

I had come to grips that it was my day to die. It wasn’t that I was scared to die; it was just one more time I would meet the Grim Reaper face to face and go toe to toe exchanging blows. It wasn’t the first time by a long shot, but it looked like my last. I’ve trained for years to expect the unexpected and learned to survive in any conditions, always expecting that death was a possibility on any one of my secret missions; it was part of the deal. I just never expected that it would happen during a Thursday morning duck hunt.

What bothered me the most at that moment as I slowly drifted off into unconsciousness was that Lauren and my son Christopher were both asleep when I left the house this morning.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to be the last time I’d see them. I just wished that I had taken five more minutes to say, I love you, one last time.”

With no more feeling remaining in my body, the bite of each new ice crystal reminded me that the sand was slipping through the hourglass, and my time was running out. Facing death is never easy. On a good day, it was complicated and messy. On a bad day, it is tragically unfair and heartbreaking.

That’s when the gravelly voice of the Grim Reaper entered my head once again and laughed,

“Ha ha ha ha…I finally beat your ass. You’ve escaped my grip one too many times, but not this time. I’ll be there soon to get you, ha ha ha ha!”

I was barely conscious, then everything got weird, not a lot of pain, but somehow, I thought, I hope I’m not dying, and then I thought… maybe I am.

When I closed my eyes, there was no noise from any trucks, cars, trains, planes, or the endless chatter from people going about their business. The odors were natural, rural, salty, and damp. My typical workday had slipped away from the personalities, the paperwork, and the social tension. In five minutes I was a child again with only one priority: Stay alive.

My body went numb, and the world suddenly went dark, passing out as if I were dead. In that moment of darkness, it was quiet with a sense of calmness. I could feel my body begin to float and slowly drift away. In the distance, I could hear the faint chatter of people in the background, as if they were standing around looking down at me, even though I knew I was alone. Then the hourglass was empty, and the world went silent. I ran out of time.

Hours later, the storm was long gone. The winds had subsided, the afternoon sun had come and gone, and the evening darkness had crept in. My stiffened body remained frozen in time, lying in its fetal position somewhere on a small grassy island in the middle of the Bay.

Somehow, and I’m not sure how I found myself still alive contemplating my existence. “Maybe I’m already dead and I didn’t know it? Was it possible that someone came and found my body?— Wait a minute… Where am I? … Oh my god, I’m not dead, am I still alive? How’d that happen? What time is it?”

Forcing my stiffened body to bend and sit up, I noticed that the evening sky was filled with a brilliant array of stars and a bright crescent moon. The mud flat was relatively dry and no longer ice-covered, just as it was this morning when I arrived. Then I noticed that my signal monument was gone, and all my gear was dry and neatly packed in the boat anchored to the shoreline and no longer stuck on a mud flat. The boat was clean, and the hull was no longer full of mud and sloshing water.

“Wait a minute! What the hell is going on? Did somebody come by and pack up my gear, and not wake me? This doesn’t make sense. The last thing I remember is that I was preparing myself for death, and then things went dark. — Am I dead, and is this Duck Hunter’s Heaven?—” Wait! If the boat is afloat, that means I can go. I don’t know why or how, but I should be able to get back to the boat ramp.”

It was well past sunset before I got my head and bearings together and navigated my way back to the boat ramp. Once there, and happy to be on dry land, I sat for the next hour in my heated truck going over today’s events. Walking away from this storm changed me. I wasn’t the same person that I was when I woke up this morning. I was still totally confused about what had happened during the hours I was unconscious. It still didn’t make sense. As I did first thing this morning when I arrived, I glanced down at my wristwatch to check the time. It was 8:00 pm, and the date read December 23, 2023; one day earlier from the day I started.

Then I recalled my visit by the Grim Reaper circling above, in the shadows waiting to take my soul. For some reason, just as he reached down with his claws of death getting within inches of my soul, “Poof,” he was gone, as if someone flipped over the hourglass, and turned back time. That’s when I knew why I was still alive. It was still yesterday and tomorrow hadn’t come yet. Time had been turned back.