Okay, so the title is a bit of an exaggeration. Especially since Piranha are freshwater fish from South America and I was in the ocean just off the beaches of Guatemala…but I did almost shipwreck! That’s true. Ask Sophie, she was there too! And my younger sister Edith.

Word of advice: If you decide to take a boat tour of an island that you’ve never been to, and you have no idea what kind of dangerous creatures lurk just under the surface of the crystal waters, you might want to check the weather before you go. Because we definitely didn’t. Oops.

Have you ever seen a buoy out at sea during a really bad storm? It dips and bobs and goes crazy and you wonder how on earth it is staying afloat! Now imagine that was our boat, filled with twelve people–five of which cannot swim–and everyone is screaming their heads off. Why?! Because our imminent deaths were upon us!!!!

It didn’t help that Sophie sat next to me chanting, “We’re going to die. We’re going to die. We’re going to die.”

And my grandfather (who couldn’t swim at all) refused to put on his life jacket because it made him feel, “like an orange puffer fish”.

When the waves came crashing toward us, they hit the boat sideways (which if you don’t know–is A LOT WORSE than hitting the wave straight on.) It makes it easier to capsize, and we were about to do just that!

“We shouldn’t tip over,” our tour guide said. Shouldn’t being the key word. “Lean against the wave.”

Well, we were leaning! Every time a wave came crashing down we would shout, “LEAN!” and struggle against gravity.

It was quite exciting. Mostly terrifying though. I think if it really wasn’t a life-or-death situation, some of us previously named in this post (*cough*cough, not me) would have been crying. Or maybe we were all crying, we were so water-logged by the spray of white-tipped waves that no one would have been able to tell anyhow.

But, alas, we returned to shore in almost one piece (I think someone might have lost a hat…or maybe it was sunglasses…) Either way, we didn’t die.

Or maybe we did and I’m writing this from the grave! Hmm…It is almost Halloween after all. Did I mention I LOVE Halloween? Once or twice? Well it’s true. Just saying. This is what my dorm room door looks like:

My dry erase board has a quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of the Sherlock Holmes stories) that reads: “Where there is no imagination, there is no horror.” True dat Mr. Doyle!

Also, check out A Marginal Tale, it has been updated with a few pictures. Or, at least, it will be just as soon as I’m finished writing this.

Happily Average After All,

Mel