Beached On Péna
Thunder clouds were mushrooming above them as Ellie, Grant, Malcolm, and Guittierez sped through the choppy sea towards Isla Sorna. According to their map, Ian had calculated, and their speed, they should be arriving at Sorna in fifteen minutes. All of a sudden, the boat's engine stuttered, and started to release copious amounts of black smoke that reeked of diesel fuel.
"What's going on?" shouted Ellie, who was trying to spot Isla Sorna through the binoculars she was holding at the bow of the ship.
"Mil maldiciones! The engine's falling apart!" shouted Guittierez in reply, as he opened up the hatch to the boat's engine compartment, which was now filled with black smoke and the smell of diesel.
"Damn it! First the goddamned paper-pusher and now the engine gets fucked up on us? COME ON!" yelled Grant from the bridge, where he was trying to shut down the engine, "We'll have to make it to Sorna! It's the nearest land!"
Through her binoculars, Ellie saw a dark, rugged, mountain-like shape in front of them. But Sorna was not shaped like that from a lateral view, she recalled. Sorna had been rather trapezoid in terms of shape, but this island in front of them was shaped like a witch's pointy hat, with a steep mountain in the center and gradual slopes at the lower elevations.
'It's right in front of us,' she realized, in horror.
"Alan, Ian, turn to the right, quick! There's an unknown island in front of us! We're gonna crash into it!" she cried, as she clambered down to the map in the bridge.
"DAMN!" yelled Malcolm as the ship refused to turn, only making sputtering noises when he turned the wheel, "We're on a crash course! It won't turn!"
"Let me try! Take the engine and shut her down!" shouted Grant, rushing over to the wheel. He turned it anti-clockwise rapidly, only to have the ship make more sputtering noises, louder this time.
"WHY ISN'T THE FUCKING ENGINE SHUTTING DOWN?" bellowed Malcolm, as he grappled with the engine's controls.
Guittierez shouted back from the engine compartment, "The engine is burning out! It HAS shut down, but it's somehow still running!"
"LOOK OUT!" screamed Ellie, as they drew close to the treacherous-looking sandbars and reefs that surrounded the mysterious island, their boat still moving at full speed.
"Everybody grab something and HOLD ON!" yelled Guittierez, as he grabbed a ladder that was welded to the ship's upper deck. The others grabbed anything solid that they could find, as their boat sped on a highway-to-hell, at full speed.
The boat hit the first sandbar, which was around twenty meters from the shore. Instead of springing a leak, it did a half somersault in the air, from the momentum of its speed. Deckchairs, books, ropes, fishing equipment, engine parts, and God-knows-what fell pell-mell into the violent waves below, which rushed to shore. The ship finally landed on its bow-which splintered like a cheap piece of plywood- and flipped over, capsizing, causing a wave of panic to surge through its occupants.
"SHIT! EVERYONE SWIM AWAY!" yelled Grant, as he tried to swim out from underneath the ship that was rapidly falling towards the seabed. The air pressure in the ship gave them some air, but not enough.
"Careful with the waves! They'll slam you against the reefs and sandbars!" shouted Guittierez, pulling Ellie out from a tangle of equipment that had fallen on her.
"On the count of three, hold your breath and follow me!" said Grant, and the others nodded.
"ONE, TWO, THREE!" he shouted, and they all drew in a deep breath, and dived under the surface of the water.
They swam single file, underwater. The seawater caused them to feel a burning sensation in their eyes, but thy ignored it. Survival was their current focus. They swam underwater, following Grant's lead. They swam into shallower waters, but were suddenly pulled back by the strong underwater currents. They found themselves now being pushed towards the surface, and were pushed towards the dangerous reefs and sandbars with titanic force. They were now swimming on the surface of the sea, kicking and paddling violently in an attempt to get to shore.
Malcolm suddenly found himself being pulled, despite him being a strong swimmer, towards a large, lichen-covered rock that stuck out of the sea. He continued paddling furiously, but felt a sudden jolt of white-hot pain as he was slammed onto the rock by the currents. He saw stars, and tasted his blood's coppery taste in his mouth. Struck by inspiration, he threw his arms around the rock, hugging it. It felt slippery and rather rubbery, like an eel of some kind. Looking around, he saw that the others were also grappling with the waves, as they fought the tides.
Grant had been thrown against a reef, which had lacerated his body in many places. He was now feeling the sting from a dozen wounds as the sea literally rubbed salt into his wounds. He finally summed up the strength to hug one of the reefs, gripping it as best he could. When the waves came, he felt the sharp coral cutting his hands, like a dozen small knives, but he was safe from another round of being tossed around by the waves.
Ellie and Guittierez had managed to get to shore, where quite a lot of their equipment had washed up- though not inclusive of Ellie's bag of saboteur tools. They were now tying loop knots in two of the several coils of rope that had washed up on shore. Swinging the ropes over their heads, like lassoes, they threw them to Grant and Malcolm, who missed catching the ropes.
"Look, Marty! The waves are receding!" said Ellie, pointing at the retreating waves.
"Then the tide is going out," said Marty, now turning to Grant and Malcolm, "THE TIDE IS GOING OUT!"
The two of them nodded weakly, and waited for the tide to recede further so that they could go on-shore. It was a good fifteen minutes until the tide subsided sufficiently for them to go on-shore, in which they nearly lost their grips on their precarious hand-holds. They were now lying on their backs on the warm sand, being tended to by Ellie and Guitttierez, who were doing the best they could to administer first aid, given their limited resources.
"You rest here, while Ellie and I go to make a raft," said Guittierez, leading Ellie into the grove of coconut trees near the beach. They held an axe each, axes that had washed up together with several coils of rope and a first aid kit.
They entered the grove, where Guittierez taught Ellie how to chop down a tree.
Moving up to a medium-sized coconut palm, Guittierez told Ellie, "To chop a tree, hit it around a foot-and-a-half from its base. The wood isn't so hard there. Swing your axe, and make a line marker, like this."
Swinging his axe, he made a deep cut in the trunk of the tree, "Next, aim at the marker line, and chop at it from above and below at 45 degree angles, like this."
A few axe swings later, she saw that he had aimed at the marker and cut the trunk such that the deep cut now resembled a letter-V on its side. She asked him, "Make a horizontal V with the 45 degree angled cuts?"
"Try to, yes."
And so, they moved on to cut down the required number of trees.
xxx
When they had finished lashing the logs together to make a raft by the water's edge, which they tethered to a nearby tree, they consulted a map which had been in Ellie's pocket when the ship sunk. Ian and Alan had woken up and were helping them as best they could. In the light from the small fire they had lit, the map appeared to be orange in color.
"Based on the contour lines of the Five Deaths, I'd say we're on Isla Péna," said Malcolm, referring to the squiggles of contour lines on the map of the island chain.
"Then we are only half a mile from Isla Sorna," said Grant, using his shoelace to measure out the distance between Sorna and Péna on the map, with reference to the scale on the map.
"That means we should be able to see it from here," said Ellie, "But it might be on another side of the island."
"We go tomorrow, OK? You guys need to rest," said Guittierez, yawning.
"Speak for yourself, Marty," said Grant, grinning, "But we need our strength for tomorrow."
"Goodnight," said Malcolm, lying down near the small fire they had lit.
Within minutes, the four of them were soundly asleep, saving up their strength for the next day.