Lost Worlds (38 page)

In a hollow above the creek we strolled across an ancient Aboriginal midden of broken shells.

“Y’know, Australians are funny,” Richard said quietly as the shells crunched beneath our feet. “They go tearing off around the world like gypsies—seeing everything—and then finally they wake up to their own country. They get the outback urge and come to places like this to find out what their own country’s all about—what
they’re
all about.”

He pointed to the high brittle plateaus and gorges of Cape Range rising up from behind the creek. “There’s so many places in there…some of them you have to walk to…hidden places, valleys, canyons…. You can lose yourself for days looking for striped rock wallabies, cave paintings…they’re all in there. And if you drive the track further south to Carnarvon you’ll find some of the best empty camping beaches in the country.”

“What about the reef?”

“Well—they call Ningaloo the Great Barrier Reef of the West Coast, but that’s not really true. It’s nothing like as long—only around two hundred miles. But it’s not known either, so you usually get the whole place to yourself. You can take a boat out there”—he pointed to the line of surf a mile or so out in the ocean—“and its all yours—great spreads of brain coral, cabbage, staghorn, fire coral. You’ll swim out there with mantas, great fat turtles, some sharks, and whale sharks, parrot fish, marlin, eels, sailfish, humpback whales—they’ve recorded more than five hundred species here…. It’s fantastic.”

Exmouth is fortunate to have such an enthusiastic tourist bureau manager. Richard’s love of this remote place made me realize why I was enjoying my ramblings through Australia so much. You feel the country is still largely undiscovered. You can still sense the pioneer spirit of the northwest ranchers and the people living in the little desert towns, hundreds of miles from anywhere. And you can see it in the eyes of citybound Australians from the east who come here to discover the timeless essence of their young country. There’s an adolescence of spirit here, a willingness to keep options open, to keep the dreams alive, to keep exploring, seeking wide-open futures in this enormous, empty land. In an ironic way, the walkabout “singings” of the Aborigines and the bright-eyed wonder of Australians discovering their own country for the first time have a similar and complementary effect—they keep Australia fresh, vigorous, and endlessly enticing. The vast red emptiness of the northwest is laced both by webs of ancient songs and more recent anthems of awe from the new discoverers. It is alive and vital. The land sings its own spirit. And I heard it many times in my journeys….

Journeys which almost came to an abrupt end in the warm floppy ocean off Exmouth.

It was my last day and I decided to join a handful of other travelers on a glass-bottom boat excursion among the colorful reefs of the peninsula’s eastern shore.

For an hour or more we drifted in the shallows, watching the parrot fish, groupers, red emperors, coral trout, starfish, sea slugs, and enormous turtles among the multicolored explosions of coral heads.

After a while, seeing such sights through thick glass was no longer enough and a number of us decided to go snorkeling. We wanted to float among the fish and lose ourselves for a while in the sun-dappled shadows of the coral forests.

I lost track of time.

Coming to the surface a while later I realized that all the others had gone back to the boat. I could see them perched on the bow in a group, drinking and listening to the skipper telling tales of the reef. They all had their backs to me, music was playing, and no one seemed in any hurry to return to shore.

Five more minutes, I promised myself, and disappeared again into the cool depths, playing with the fish and watching the shards of sunlight undulate over the coral formations.

Then something rather odd began to happen. As I lay motionless close to the surface I noticed that the coral was drifting past me. Slowly at first and then with increasing speed. A rather pleasant sensation—like peering through the window of a moving train. Only I sensed I was being pulled farther and farther away from the boat.

I came to the surface again. I was indeed being carried away from the boat. I could see my fellow snorkelers still drinking and listening to the skipper’s tales, but they were smaller now and the boat was a good quarter of a mile away.

No problem. Time to swim back and join in the fun.

Only the swimming didn’t seem to work. I increased my pace, but the boat came no closer. Something was carrying me farther out into the ocean. The water was noticeably colder too. And waves were forming in a breeze that had not been there before. Small waves at first, hardly chin height. And then a little bigger.

Okay—power swimming time. I switched to a steady crawl, but the boat remained just as far away. And the wind became stronger, blowing directly against me. Only one thing to do. Bawl out and tell the skipper to come closer.

I took off my mask and shouted, but my voice didn’t seem to carry. I shouted louder, but now the wind was blowing the sound back into my face. I tried waving, but no one was looking in my direction. They didn’t even seem to know I was out here.

I opened my mouth for a real bellow, and a wave—a wave I should have seen but didn’t—crashed into my face and sent water tumbling down my throat and windpipe.

I was gagging. I swung around away from the boat, letting the waves pound against the back of my head. If I could just get my breath back and my mask on…the mask! Where the hell was the mask? Dammit, it must have been knocked out of my hand when the first wave hit. Now I couldn’t breathe through the tube…and I couldn’t breathe in those waves that thrashed between me and the ever-receding boat.

For the first time in my life I became scared in water. Initially it was just a little frisson of fear, a faint shiver up my spine. Water has always been my friend, something to frolic in, something to love for its buoyancy, its colors, its dappled intricacies. But now it became an attacker. An enemy. My breath was still weak as the windpipe struggled to clear itself.

Panic hit. I couldn’t reach the boat, I couldn’t make them see me, and I couldn’t make it to the shore that was now well over two miles away. My energy was draining as I dog-paddled with my back to the waves.

Turn around again—keep your mouth shut—and wave like crazy…

The waves hit hard again, angry now. White-topped, and cold. I waved as vigorously as I could with both arms, pushing my body out of the water.

Dammit, couldn’t anyone see me? Bloody idiots…didn’t they know I was here? I wasn’t going to be able to do this many more times.

I felt the adrenaline surge but knew that my strength was running out fast…. My heart was pounding…my arms felt leaden…my breathing was hoarse, fast, and shallow. Panic grew as I realized the horrible inevitability of what was happening; it seemed to tighten my lungs so that I had almost no air.

Stange things were going on in my brain. Two entirely different reactions: one-half seemed to be a miasma of panic and pain from a body too tired now even to swim; the other half was a brilliant kaleidoscope of moving images, a series of fast-forwarding tapes, replaying fragments of memories, sensations, emotions. Friends’ faces flashed by…a sudden picture of me crying as a child when I’d accidentally tipped my baby sister out of her carriage…a fight I’d once had with a bully in school back in Yorkshire…my father’s rare but always loving grin…my first car, a bright turquoise-blue Austin Mini, and the pride of that first drive…a lobster feast on Cape Cod with friends from New Jersey…our first New York apartment with a tiny terrace on the fringe of Greenwich village…a sudden taste of blinding-hot Indian Vindaloo curry…and then Anne, smiling, laughing…and a thought—Oh, God, she’s going to be really pissed if I don’t get home—a crazy vivid patchwork of unpatterned images.

And then from a newly emerging third part of my brain…something, somewhere, cool and objective…came a quiet, almost disinterested voice telling me, You’re drowning, David…. you’ll be done with all this soon…you’ll be all right…. There are more things to come…things you never dreamed of….

I could see—not feel—but really see myself dog-paddling more slowly now, the energy fading, the cold being replaced by a strange warm glow. I’d never had an out-of-body experience before, but that’s how it felt—as though part of me, the essential part, was above the thrashing waves, maybe twenty, thirty feet above, looking down at the sad little flailing figure below, waving its arms, fighting the inevitable.

…there are more things to come…

A calm came. An acceptance. A sense that for one of the few times in my life I was utterly helpless, there was nothing “I” could do, and that me—my fate, my life, all the me’s that are me—were being given over to something else, something much larger, all-encompassing, something that would take care of me.

I didn’t really sense the arm encircle my neck at first. It felt, I suppose, like another wave, another battering…and then, with a jolt, my three free-wheeling brains melded back into a single entity screaming out one very clear message: You’re being choked!

The arm was like a vise, compacting my windpipe and squeezing out the last gasps of air. I lashed out, but the arm tightened even more. Maybe fearing that my apparent panic would destroy us both, my rescuer was determined to control my movements. I managed to turn enough so that he could see my face in the final stages of asphyxiation.

“…Shoulders…I hold…your shoulders…” Somehow the words spluttered out.

Whoever my savior was, he nodded, turned, and I swam weakly with him against the waves, one arm across his back, gripping his shoulder. I still had little air in my lungs, but I knew now I was safe, and there was no panic. Just a determination to get back to the boat without making an utter fool of myself.

Faces peered over the bow, arms reached out, and I was dragged slowly on board. Someone thrust a glass of something sweet and strong into my hand. It burned like ice and fire, but it did its work, making me choke out the seawater in my lungs and sense the warming fingers of sugary alcohol ease through my body.

I was utterly drained. There was no energy left. The boat bobbed about in the heaving swell. Then I heard the motors roar and saw the shore coming closer and closer…hard land, safe, dependable land…. I wanted to be laid on warm sand well away from that pernicious ocean and just left to sleep and sleep…

Peter Hillier was the hero of the day. He had seen what would have been the last of my useless frantic arm waves and had leapt off the boat, called to the skipper to follow, and done “one of the fastest racing crawls I’ve ever done, mate,” to save this errant wanderer from an ignominious watery demise.

Peter was a charter pilot on a brief business trip out of Perth, and we became instant bosom buddies back on land. We caroused together in the local pub that evening with a crowd of other outback adventurers, sang Australian folk songs together at a crooked moon, and made plans to fly south together, back to his home and his family in Fremantle, after a day or two more in the Ningaloo sun.

I shall never forget you, Peter. You gave me a new life—a life I celebrate now with a fresh sense of wonder and gratitude. You made it possible for me to complete this book and, I hope, many others. You made my smile wider and my spirit far richer.

For this I will continue to thank you, my friend.

Every day of my new life.