About the Author: The author of Cold Water likes to run and ski in their free time.
Aleks lives in a small town in Cape Horn, Chile; with his mom, dad, and his younger brother. His younger brother is named Cody, and Aleks’s friends are named Ethan, Will, and Noah. They are all 18, except for Cody who is 17. Tomorrow they are all going out on their parents yacht to host a new year party.
Later that day at school a couple of girls overheard them talking about the party that they are going to have on the yacht. The girls said it sounded like fun and asked if they could go.
Aleks said ¨yeah¨ with no hesitation.
Will, Ethan and Noah said ¨sure ¨.
Aleks was good friends with the girls, their names were May and Brenda.
The next day they brought the yacht to the boat launch, and put it in the water and then threw their food, water and other things they needed in the boat. Aleks threw in extra gasoline and a flare.
The temperature outside was 40 degrees, and the water was around 33 degrees. The farther out they went the colder the water would get, but hopefully no one would jump in and go swimming.
It was about an hour into the trip and about twenty miles off shore, when there was some pieces of ice floating water, about the size of a large door.
They all took turns steering the boat, even though Aleks was the only one with a boat licence. It was Will's turn to steer the boat, so Ethan gave the wheel to him and then went to the the back of the boat to hang out.
They were all eating junk food and drinking soda, when from the front of the boat there was a huge THUD! The impact was so big that it knocked everyone to the ground. Ethan jumped up and ran to the front of the boat to see what happened. When he looked over the side of the boat he almost got sick.
Noah was helping everybody up, and making sure that they were okay. Brenda hit her head pretty hard, but she said she was okay. Aleks got a small bruise on his leg, but besides that everyone was okay. Ethan came running to the back of the boat with a look in his eye that made everyone worried.
“Do we have a lifeboat?” Ethan asked,
“Why would we need a lifeboat?” Aleks replied.
Ethan brought them to the front of the boat, and told them to look over the side. There was a huge gash in the side of the boat about the size of a filing cabinet.
“Were going to die, were going to die.” May screams
At that moment everyone realized that they were in a life or death situation and they need to motivate.
“No one is going to die,” Ethan assured everyone.
“OMG Will!” Brenda yelled.
They all rushed to the cabin to find Will asleep on the floor. Cody stopped the motor while Noah woke him up.
“He must have been so tired that he fell asleep at the wheel, and slept through the impact,” Ethan said.
That is when they all felt the ship's bow start to take on water. They knew that they had little time before the boat sunk.
There was a liferaft with a small motor on the back of the boat. Ethan told everyone to get in, and Aleks thought that they could make it on the boat if they go fast enough. But there was one problem, no one knew what way to go. Ethan thought to go north, and Aleks thought west. After awhile of arguing Ethan, Noah, Will, and May jumped on the lifeboat. Aleks, Cody, and Brenda stayed on the boat. They split the food and gasoline between them, and Aleks took the flare.
About 30 minutes after departing, Ethan threw up over the side of the raft. They turned off the motor of the raft, and started to get ready to sleep. It was now dusk and the sun was setting and it was beautiful orange and pink lit up the sky and reflected over the water making it look like molten lava. Just before the sun left the horizon, the sky lit up a beautiful golden purple and then darkness.
In the morning Noah awoke to see Ethan hungrily chowing down the ration of food.
“What are you doing?” Yelled Noah, waking Will and May.
“After throwing up, I lost all of the food and energy I had,” said Ethan.
“Go on,” Said Noah.
“I thought I would be okay, but I woke up and my stomach felt like it got turned inside out.”
“Alright,” said Noah
At 2 o'clock in the morning, Aleks and Cody were bailing water out of the boat, regretting their decision. The water was flooding the boat, and bailing was not doing much. The water was coming in faster than they could bail it out, and their arms felt like noodles.
Brenda was looking for some sort of light over the dark water, when she kicked a piece of plastic. She reached down and grabbed the piece of plastic, and played with it in her hands to figure out what it was. It felt sort of like a big, plastic roman candle. She moved her hand down, feeling the crusted salt and cold plasted beneath her hand. Suddenly, she felt a small, metal pin. Hoping against hope, she pulled it…. Nothing. She pulled again, but harder. This time, the cold night sky lit up with the bright, white orange of a nautical flare.
It was 3 o'clock in the morning, when Will was awoken to find a huge animal surfacing next to their tiny raft. The whale-like creature sent huge waves, rocking the boat up and down. He woke everyone to see the creature. nobody could really see the whale but it was amazing to have an animal of that size 10 feet away from you.
“Look!” yelled May.
To their surprise there was a bright orange light on the horizon. Ethan started the engine and started towards it.
Will, Ethan, Noah and May were shocked to find the people they left behind hours ago clinging to a pile of lifejackets and lifesavers. After they got everyone on the tiny life raft, they realized they were lost. Everyone was cold, clammy, hungry, sick, and tired. They accepted the fact that they were probably not going to make it to land. Everyone just layed down and said nothing.
It could have been the loud roar of the engine, or the spray of salt water that woke them up. No one was strong enough to get up, but Aleks managed to prop himself up to be looking at a large fishing boat.