Sometimes funny things happen, which of course don’t seem funny at all when they were happening but in retrospect are kind of funny. Recently, we went to the beach for our company retreat. It is usually held on one of those balmy summer days which are so few and far between in New England. Every year there is some special treat and this year we could take speed boats from the marina for a spin in the blue-green ocean stretched far and wide in front of us.

My friend and I happened to be the last ones remaining who had not tried the boat ride as yet that everybody seemed to be so excited about. So we went to the proprietor of the speed boats and requested to take a boat out. The lady or should I say the girl working there pointed us towards boat number 30 which was going to be our ride. My friend inquired about the mechanics of driving the thing which seemed simple, just a key to turn on the motor and a stick to throttle and steering to steer, perfect simple and easy. Practical as always, he also asked about the fuel tank being full and how far out we could take her. To which the girl replied, “You could take her pretty far, you guys are all set. ” We should have been suspicious at the “pretty far” part itself but we were not.

We sat gingerly into the tiny seats and my friend turned the key and carefully shifted the stick to mid speed and moved out of the marina and into the great ocean gradually going full throttle. It was truly a beautiful day, sunlight shimmering on the water, a nice breeze blowing my hair untidy, getting hit by salt spray occasionally. Few seagulls were perched, sunbathing, on the rocks that were jutting out of the water near the shore. We had gone far enough that we could easily see the Boston downtown skyline clearly. My friend asked if we should turn around, but I was enjoying myself so much that I said we ought to go a little further, which we did. I loved to put my hand in the water as if trying to cut the waves into two. The Atlantic is always so cold, despite the warm sunshine the water temperature was probably in the 50s. We couldn’t help but smile as we took in our surroundings.

Finally, we agreed that we had come far enough and turned around towards the shore. We might have covered a fourth of the distance we drove earlier and at that point the motor and the boat came to a sudden stop. My friend looked at me with a puzzled and worried expression, to which my response was “Oh come on, I’m not falling for that, you turned the key while I wasn’t looking, turn it back and start the motor.” He was annoyed by this and told me that he did not stop the engine, the motor just stopped, “We are out of fuel.” he said. I still made him turn the key off and back on to which the motor groaned for a split second and for that split second I thought he was just kidding with me before and now we can drive back. But, unfortunately, the motor groaned and died and I realized that he really was scared. Now we were both thinking about cell phones which we both had not carried with us thinking that they would get wet so why bother. If you think not carrying our cell phones was stupid than here is the real kicker, neither of us had been smart enough to ask for life jackets.

Since there were no boats near us we decided to wait. Seeing my friend get very tensed I tried distracting him by asking about his golf game from earlier that morning although he didn’t look too happy about me trying to distract him. We started trying to row with our hands and the movie “Piranha” flashed in my head for a second. I shook off that feeling of fear as soon as it had started to take hold in my head. I was thinking soon the others will miss us and come looking for us. And on the plus side, at least the waves were taking us to the shore, albeit very slowly. From where we were, the shoreline looked like tiny dots far away. Then I realized that my friend is probably a better swimmer than I, the shallow-end-swimming-pool-swimmer. Dismissing all these thoughts, I put on a brave face and told my friend that its best to wait, “Someone from the marina will come looking for us” I said. I don’t know whether this was me being eternally optimistic or brave or just plain stupid. After all, there is a very fine line of demarcation between bravery and stupidity.

It seemed like hours had passed by. In the meantime, we saw a sailing boat, it was nowhere near us but nevertheless we started waving our arms wildly and screaming that we have no fuel and we are stuck and that we need help. Obviously they could not hear us but waved back in our direction as a sign of sea-faring camaraderie. We continued to wave in a crazy manner and they finally took notice that our little speed boat was not moving and that we were waving way too frantically and they started moving toward us. As the sailing boat was within ear shot they heard our screams of help and we told them that we didn’t have any fuel and were stranded and did not have cell phones so if they could please contact someone at the shore to get us we would be very grateful. They said they will do just that and told us not to worry. We both thanked them profusely. And as if god had heard our prayers we saw another boat coming in our direction and on looking closely it was the girl, who had provided us the boat, and another guy who worked for the proprietor. There were a lot of “thank-god-you-came” and “thank-god-we-found-you”s. My friend told the girl that he was starting to feel like a castaway. They told us that they had binoculars and were searching for our boat for a while before they found us. They brought their boat alongside ours’ and used their boat rope to attach to the front tip of our boat and hauled us to shore.

My friend and I visibly relaxed, thanked our lucky stars, and enjoyed the rest of the ride back. He confessed that he was wondering if there were any sharks in this part of the waters. It was then that I started thinking that I was neither brave nor stupid. I’m just unattached and the thought that a strong wave could have toppled the boat and I might have drowned did not affect in the same way as it would my friend who has a wife and a kid. Of course I’m not trying to lessen the degree of my fear or the value of my life but that feels like a rational explanation to me. In true Shakespearean “All’s well that ends well” fashion the rest of the day was amazing.