I Ended Up Floating on the Ocean on a Foggy Night in a Small, Engine-less, Paddle-less Boat, Drunk on Absinthe

You can read the story but please don’t tell my mum.

I have no idea how I managed to survive the 36th night of our journey across the Atlantic, (from Europe to Americas), on a sailboat. Stupid and drunk people are said to be protected by some higher force, and that day, I fit both categories.

I found myself alone in a dinghy (a small rubber boat) outside the Las Palmas marina’s breakwater, with a broken engine and a missing paddle. No one could hear my cries for help. It was nighttime, and the Atlantic Ocean was pulling me so fast toward open sea that I could feel the danger in my bones. And to make matters worse, I was drunk. Then the fog rolled in: dense, ghostly, like something straight out of a horror movie.

Illustration, Photo by Chris Hillier,Pexels

“Really? This is how I’m going to end up, Neptune?” I asked the Roman god of the sea.

He didn’t answer. The waves just got stronger. It was clear I couldn’t do much with one paddle against the mighty Atlantic.

“So it’s pulling me toward open waters. Okay. I’ll probably float all night. The search party won’t even start until daylight,” I thought grimly. In fact, they might not even start at dawn.

I knew that already, and later confirmed it many times while covering search efforts as a daily newspaper journalist. They usually pause searches at night or during bad weather, then resume in the early morning.

“It’ll likely take me far, far from the coast. But how far, and in what direction? No clue. My friends might think I’m with my crew, and my crew might think I’m with my friends. If that’s the case, the rescue mission might not even start tomorrow. What’s the weather forecast? No idea.”

The captain always checked the weather, and we’d been anchored in the same bay for a while, so I hadn’t paid attention.

“I’m in light clothes. It’ll probably get cold. I have no water. How long can a person survive without it?” I couldn’t remember. But I knew it wasn’t long, maybe a few days, tops.

Pretty stupid to die of dehydration while floating on water

“So if they don’t find me in time, I’ll die of thirst. That’s not a fun way to go. Pretty stupid, actually , floating on an endless supply of water I can’t drink. What an irony. Then again, what would be a smart way to die? I didn’t want to die at all. Life had just become interesting. I’d left everything behind and set sail for adventure. I was only starting this journey. I hadn’t even crossed the ocean yet. This isn’t fair. Come on, I’m only 26, damn it! How the hell do I get out of this shit?!”

Me at 26. My photo.

Those were my thoughts during what I believed were the final hours of my life. And it all started with drinking forbidden alcohol that afternoon.

Fun with Friends

I was hanging out with my Norwegian friends on two boats tied side by side in the Las Palmas marina. My own sailboat wasn’t in the marina, it was anchored in the bay outside the breakwater. Well, technically, it was my captain’s boat, but that 17-meter sloop had been my home for seven months. So let’s just call it mine, for fun.

My dear Norwegian friends had discovered that Absinthe was legal in Spain, and therefore in Las Palmas. They brought a bottle of the blue-green liquid so we could try it. We had to, it was famous and mostly illegal elsewhere.

Illustration. Photo by Jill Burrow Pexels

“Did you know that Van Gogh bit off his ear while drinking this stuff with Paul Gauguin?” someone asked, already feeling the effects of the poison.

“Haha, ‘bit’? Maybe ‘cut’? Hard to bite off your own ear, but hey, it’s Absinthe, anything’s possible,” someone else replied.

I was dying of laughter, trying to reach my ear with my teeth. Clearly, the Absinthe was working. Soon, everyone was trying to bite off their own ears. No one succeeded. We sipped the forbidden drink like there was no tomorrow.

Allegedly, if you drink enough of the real stuff (not the diluted imitations sold in Europe ) it causes pathological changes in the brain. It’s highly addictive, and the original formula is banned in most countries. Why it was still legal in Spain, where it’s sold in shops and served in cafés, no one knew. But the Norwegians were convinced they had the real thing.

The One Time I Had to Change Clothes

The evening took a bad turn when I decided to change clothes. I usually don’t care much about what I wear, as long as it’s clean and comfortable. Most sailors I’d met didn’t care about presentation either, experience mattered more than looks.

I can’t even remember what I was wearing or why it suddenly felt urgent to change, but the idea got stuck in my head. Maybe it was the Absinthe, maybe just my usual stubbornness, but either way, it got me into a lot of trouble.

I left the Norwegians, feeling the liquid courage in my veins. I found my captain in a bar with a crew member. They were both upset that I hadn’t contacted them all day. Still, I asked the captain to borrow the dinghy. For the first time ever, he said yes.

Illustration. Photo by Pepe Caspers, Pexels

I knew how to operate it, but he’d never let me take it alone before. We’d only been at sea for a month, and Gran Canaria was our third stop. We were planning to cross to the Caribbean soon, waiting for a big regatta to start. We weren’t participating, but it felt safer to cross the ocean with a fleet of other boats than on our own.

At First, Everything Went Smoothly

I found the dinghy tied at the dock, started the engine without any problem, and headed toward our anchored sailboat, about a nautical mile away. I drifted through the massive marina, around the breakwater, and out to the anchorage.

Illustration. Photo by Duygu, Pexels

Everything was fine. I arrived at the boat, unlocked it, changed clothes, locked up again, and went back to the dinghy. I started it, revved the engine, and turned toward the marina.

It was pitch dark. A huge breakwater stood in front of the marina, guarding it from the Atlantic’s force. As I slowly passed it, I saw some kids fishing with rods. I knew I had to steer around them so I wouldn’t catch their lines in the propeller. I gave them the same distance I would have back home.

Illustrations, Photos by Magda Ehlers and Altuğ Meriç Esendemir, Pexels

Then Things Started Going Wrong

But I wasn’t in my little Adriatic sea. I was in the Atlantic ocean now. The safe distance should’ve been ten times greater. Too late. The dinghy’s propeller - my first time using one alone, let’s say it again, snagged the boys’ fishing line. The engine sputtered and died. The tangle was hopeless.

The kids, furious, started throwing rocks at me. I was the catch they didn’t want. Then the Absinthe kicked in again. I had no knife, no scissors, so I used my teeth to cut the line. I just wanted to release their rod. Keeping a dinghy and drunk sailor on the hook didn’t seem useful. They disagreed.

Illustration. Photo by Hakan Arslan, Pexels

I Was Yelling, Swearing, and Threatening the Kids

They went wild. Furious at losing their line, they cursed me in Spanish and hurled rocks. I cursed back in my native Croatian tongue and yelled. The waves were pushing me dangerously close to the breakwater, and the kids kept launching rocks like a tennis ball machine. I grabbed the paddle to steer away and to shield myself. Between dodging projectiles, I waved it at them threateningly like a lunatic.

They laughed even harder.

I don’t know how, but in the chaos, I lost the paddle. It slipped into the sea and disappeared in seconds. The kids were running out of rocks, and I must have looked totally defeated, so they gave up and disappeared.

Then the Ocean Started Playing With Me

With the rock barrage over, I tried restarting the engine. I pulled the starter cord so hard I nearly yanked the motor off its mount. Fuel spilled everywhere. I barely caught the engine before it dropped into the ocean. I shoved it back into place, closed the fuel valve, and gave up. My heart was beating like crazy.

The same waves that had tried to smash me against the rocks were now dragging me out to sea. I didn’t know if it was the current, some magnetic force, or Neptune’s mood swing, but it was terrifying. The fog rolled in, and the water seemed to evaporate into a ghostly mist.

“Oh Neptune, Neptune, what am I to do? How will I get out of this one?” I cried.

I had no answers. I stood there, watching as the ocean sucked me toward my doom. No one was nearby. The anchored sailboats were empty, everyone had gone ashore.

“They’re devouring food while I’m dying out here. Some fellow sailors…” I muttered, blaming strangers for something that wasn’t their fault. But I was desperate. It was just so stupid to die like this, I had to be angry at someone.

No One Heard My Cries for Help

I screamed in agony and despair, but it felt useless. No one had heard the earlier commotion. The kids were long gone, and even if they had been there, they wouldn’t have helped. They hated me.

So I started saying goodbye to my young life, approximately the third time that month. (I’ll link the other two when I write them.)

Then, through the fog, I heard an engine. A green and red light with a white center cut through the night. A boat was coming! The bow of a motorboat emerged from the mist.

Illustration. My photo.

Maybe Neptune had changed his mind.

“Help! Mayday, mayday!” I screamed from the bottom of my lungs.

Thank You, Thank You, Three English People!

Three English people, two men and a woman, saved me! They hauled me aboard and took me to dock number 10 near their spot. Drunk and exhausted, I accidentally bumped an American yacht while tying up the dinghy. The owner came storming out, screaming and cursing, even though my dinghy was made of rubber and it couldn’t have damaged his precious yacht in his wildest dreams. So my saviors pulled me away again, all the way to the far-off dinghy dock in the huge marina, and left quietly after I thanked them a million times. It wasn’t even a big deal for them, but for me, it meant the difference between life and death.

Illustration. Photo by Kindel Media, Pexels

“How will I face my captain now? He’ll kill me. And how will we get back to our boat without a dinghy?”

The Engine Was Irreparable

A sailor who was passing by offered to help me. We tried untangling the engine together for an hour, but it was hopeless. The motor was dead. I thanked him and headed to the bar. It was wild, noisy and festive inside. I ruined the mood by telling the crew what happened.

“A fishing hook caught the propeller. The motor’s not working,” I admitted plainly.

“Okay. We’ll figure something out,” the captain said calmly.

He didn’t yell, accuse, or shame me. But he was worried, and he had every right to be. The engine couldn’t be saved, no matter how many people tried.

Captain and crew member with blurred faces. My photo.

Walking Six Kilometers for Paddles

I saw my Norwegian friends and told them I wouldn’t go out that night. I was staying with the crew to deal with the broken dinghy. They agreed and returned to their boats, tied up two kilometers from the dinghy dock.

Later, the captain asked me to go borrow paddles from them. I was completely wasted and barely able to walk, but I set out. I walked two kilometers, got the paddles, and walked back. Four kilometers total. I was shattered. And they were gone.

Later, I found out that a fishing boat had picked them up and taken them safely to the sailing boat. I was left ashore. The only people I knew in all of Las Palmas were my dear Norwegian friends, whom I first met in Madeira and ran into again in Gran Canaria. (They would play an important role in my life again later by giving me a valuable piece of information.)

The world collapsed inside me. I walked another two kilometers back to the Norwegians and woke them up.

Collapsed but Safe

I was so miserable I cried from frustration, Absinthe, and exhaustion. I even threw up. They comforted me, made space for me to sleep, and I passed out on their boat. Broken, shaken, but alive.

The next day, the captain bought a new engine. The hangover lasted two more days.

“Oh, Absinthe, Absinthe — never again.”

If you enjoy slightly crazy stories where the author isn’t afraid to show her heartbeat, even when she’s wrong or doing unwise things, please follow, subscribe, or whatever. Just don’t tell my mum. You promised.