So on this classic excursion, I recall us discussing the topic of where we imagined we would be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 30 years… what we would be doing, dreams, family, all that good stuff. So naturally this question surfaced: “if you could be doing anything in 30 years (complications of life excluded from the equation), what would it be?” Interestingly enough, we both had the same answer. Or similar anyway.
As long as I can remember, I’ve always had a fascination with archaeology and ancient history. I’m pretty sure my parents were pretty concerned when I was in second grade, and they had a 8-year old who memorized every fact about the gods, myths, architecture, and all finer points of Egyptology. I guarantee that it was sparked by Indiana Jones, but to mix that with my expression through art and a kid’s hunger for adventure… I’ll leave it to you to imagine what that 8-year old would have been like.
Later on, in high school, I started to become really intrigued by the ocean. I was scuba certified, loved to surf, and was taken with wonder at the vastness, life, and beauty the ocean contains. If you unite all these interests together, what you get is some sort of ocean explorer/ treasure hunter, and oddly enough, that’s more or less what I would want to do in 30 years or so. Perhaps not as a profession, per say, but more of a frequented escapade or hobby. It’s the perfect mix of adventure, exploration, nature, and history. (And naturally I would incorporate photography, videography, and design into it somehow. Maybe I could make films for Discovery Channel or something.)
All that to say, my friend and I share this dream and casually discuss making a reality of it on my occasional rounds to visit he and his wife in North Florida several times each year. We often plan some sort of adventure whenever I visit, and this past weekend we decided on a full-day ocean kayaking trip off Amelia Island. And this weekend, my friends, just happened to be the moment when we happened upon our first shipwreck.
We had paddled a mile or so into the ocean from Amelia Island to investigate a massive sandbar that floods and resurfaces with the changing of tides, when I noticed what looked like a sliver of iron spiking from the waves roughly a quarter mile further out from where we were at present. For the sake of potential discovery, of course we had to continue on and check it out. And so we did. We paddled the extra distance, through an aggressive patch of waves that nearly overturned me twice, to get a proper look at whatever discovery this might happen to be.
Sure enough, it was sunken ship! It was a scene just like you would see in a movie… Hazy water, but just clear enough to make out the hammerhead silhouettes circling the perimeter. A weathered rust-tinted main mast that had been shattered against the rocks. Cargo, battered and strewn across the silt of the ocean floor. Waves crashing. Thunderstorm approaching…
Ok, maybe a couple of those details are slightly exaggerated, but still, it was an exciting find!
It’s always quite humorous to talk or dream and then have those random moments when glimpses of the dream actually unfold before you. Perhaps it’s similar to the feeling of wishing to meet a particular celebrity and then by peculiar happenstance running into them at an airport or seeing them in a restaurant. Anyways, it made for one heck of a trip, a good story, and a memory I’ll probably hold on to forever. There’s a grand mystique and something intangibly awe-inspiring about this kind of experience. I hope to have the chance to live out a grander one in the future. Maybe in thirty years, probably less.
