Shocking!!! How I Almost Got Swallowed by the Sea

The sea or simply the ocean covers over 70% of Earth’s surface. Others may also say that the sea is the interconnected system of all the Earth's ocean waters. The sea goes through various weather changes and if you get a chance to sail it’s important for one to know how the weather is before sailing. This is my adventure of how I almost got swallowed by the sea.

Tioman Island (Image courtesy of dxing.at-communication.com)

During my college days in Malaysia, I used to do a lot of travelling during my holidays. Since it was expensive to come back home every holiday, I opted to travel around Malaysia and its surroundings. Malaysia is located in the Southeast Asia, and it’s separated by the South China Sea into two similarly sized regions namely Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia (Malaysia Borneo). My adventure began on a Friday when I and a couple of friends decided to head to Tioman Island for a holiday.

Tioman Island is a small island which is located 32 km off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia in the state of Pahang. To access the Island one has to use a ferry service or a propeller plane service. Since we were operating on a tight budget as students, we opted to use the ferry services.

(Image source: http://cdn2.agoda.net/)

I had occasionally used the ferry services and since my sailing in the sea was not more than three hours I was always comfortable. I love swimming and getting on the ferry was just a routine holiday trip for me and my boys. Our journey to the island took us approximately two hours where we were received warmly with a cold glass of tropical juice. I had to admit that Tioman Island is one of the most beautiful highlands I have ever been to. As we settled into our rooms I was glad that we picked Tioman Island for our holiday. Our adventure began the day of the arrival as we had an evening of full entertainment with cultural dancers and a live band carrying us away with wonderful performances. As we retired to bed we knew that we had a great weekend to look forward to. The weekend passed away with lots of activities like snorkeling, parasailing and jet skiing. We had made lots of friends as well formed a friendship amongst ourselves.

It was hard for each one of us to leave and as we boarded the ferry back home one could easily see the sadness on each of our faces. Our journey back started well but within half an hour the sea changed and become bad. I have seen storms in movies but experiencing one was beyond my expectations. There were 20 feet waves crushing our ferry and tossing it like a toy boat. The passengers were mostly white tourists, a few local people and us. We were only two black people on the boat and since we had never experienced such a storm we immediately requested for the life jackets. The rest of the passengers we caught in laughter when my friend mentioned that he had watched a lot of movies and in situations like this black people always died first. After a short laughter the crew finally gave everyone a life jacket. A trip that usually took 2 hours ended up taking 8 hours after the captain battled his way through the waves to our destination. The sea almost swallowed us as people started making peace with their God. At some point we are praying for our safety return to mainland, nothing else mattered to us than to see land. When we arrived at the port all we could do was to kiss the land. There is nothing better than to see land after eight hours of sea and after almost swallowed by the sea. We all learnt an important lesson that it’s important to check the weather in advance before choosing a holiday location.