Nate johnston
Mr.jockers
Ila period 3
6/9/22

                                                                 Storm Catcher

The three of us stood there soaking wet and freezing, getting scolded by our instructor for being reckless, “We definitely deserved this’’ I thought. After all, we should’ve listened to the procedure and turned around as soon as the storm started to pick up. But we were so focused on winning we completely disregarded it as nothing was stopping us from winning that race.
The wind howled around us as we sped across the water. Despite the strong wind our small 3 person sailboat held strong. We were lengths ahead of everyone else. Our goal ,the lighthouse, was visible on the horizon still a ways ahead. The air smelled of rain and the sky was light gray. The boat was strong enough to hold up underneath the rain so we weren’t worried too much. We were home free, there was no way we could lose, we had a strong tailwind and could barely see the other boats, nothing could possibly stop us now, or so I thought,
“up ahead, look.” Kevin said
we looked up and saw it, jet black clouds were approaching and fast, for a cloud at least. We were still a pretty good distance away from it so none of us were too concerned. We sailed on for a good six or seven minutes when the rain started, for now it was only a little bit we could still handle this. Another 5 minutes passed and the wind started to pick up,
“Should we turn back?” asked Alex.
“Nah we’re probably fine.” I said
I could not have been more wrong. But in our minds there was no way a little wind and rain was going to stop a bunch of over competitive 13 year olds. And then the rain picked up, what started as a little drizzle was now coming down in sheets. By this point we should’ve turned back but for some stupid reason we kept going.
“This is bad.” I said as we were scooping water out of the boat with our hands to stop us from sinking,“Should we keep going?” I asked.
“No way, we’re so close to winning.” said Kevin.
Now the boat really started to rock, we had to move from side to side to keep the boat from capsizing. I seriously have no reason why we didn’t turn around. We could barely even see the light house because of the weather. All was going as well as it could given the situation for a solid 6 minutes until a massive gust of wind hit the side of our boat like a bull,
“OH SH_!!” I heard someone start to yell but was cut off as the boat got thrown to the side and we slammed into the water. All I could see was darkness and it was freezing cold. My mind was going at a million miles per hour, mainly a bunch of colorful words and a few ideas of how to get out of this situation. Then my life vest started to lift me towards the surface. *THUNK*
“OW!” I yelled in surprise, well it sounded like a bunch of bubbles since I was under water. Since I couldn’t see I didn’t realize I was under the mast and slammed right into it. I emerged and saw everyone else already had. Alex clung to the boat as we flipped it over, he pulled the rest of us back into the boat,
“We should turn back.” Kevin said as we desperately tried to get everything in order again.
“Yeah probably.” Alex agreed
As we sailed back we were silent because we all knew we were going to get in a lot of trouble. And we were right, standing right next to the doc was our instructor. Everyone else had already gotten back almost 10 minutes ago. Aw crap I thought to myself as we docked the boat how are we gonna get out of this.