"A CHANCE": The Harrison Okene Unforgettable Real Story

in The Ink Welllast year (edited)

INTRODUCTION

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Source: pixabay

A boat afflicted by the
great wave.

"Imagine you are aboard a ship with one bright morning sun with the serenity of the grandeur ocean, which keeps swinging by calm waves and bracing air. Then suddenly, an unexpected turnabout happens. You find yourself floating on a rugged raft to survive. Surely, one thing is true we don't want to face the same terrible ordeal."

Hello, my fellow hivers! This is my 1st time publishing a story in this amazing community, The Ink Well yet my last blog as an OCD graduate ☺️. I am so delighted to have found this one. Your guidance and support here are highly cherished.☺️

What I am about to uncover is the real story of a man who managed to afloat himself for nearly 3 days on a chilly seawater after a boatwrecked due to a squall of sudden violent air combined with furious rain turmoiling the waves in the blink of an eye.

NIGHTMARE RETOLD

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Source: pixabay

Harrison Okene was a Chef of a Jascon-4 tugboat oil tanker. On May 26, 2013, while he, along with 11 crews placidly sailing on the Atlantic Ocean a shift of weather headlong turned their lives 360 degrees forever.

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Source: pixabay

an unkind weather

He was in the bathroom when a towering wave surge was effectuated by a squall whacking the boat. With that knowledge, his ingenuity quickened him to think about hoarding a few essentials like canned goods, etc within his reach. While the vessel was filling up with water, he maneuvered to unlid a crammed door and found himself safe in an air pocket and was dreadfully seated with a raft made out of his cleverness. An air pocket is a little area filled with air designed to bar the flow of a liquid from coming in however it can only hold up to 56 hours. There the unconceivable horrors of the event began to shrivel his strength and deaden his courage as he began to realize a total unbreakable despair.

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Source: pixabay

a deep agony

With this unmediated catastrophic event, though the unconquerable fright did not pass, he solaced himself as he said, 'Cripping fear must have been killed within me or else it will kill me before the real death can." while in grave desperate he kept crying and calling up to the Lord Jesus for His mercy.

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Source: pixabay

unshakeable fear

Day 1 had expired, he was starving in hunger and thirst, ailing cold, and bewildered in total darkness. But he never lost hope. He believed that a rescue would come to bring him off from jeopardy soon. Day 2 lapsed seemed an age when rescues were not found yet only crayfish mobbed him over to chomp on his skin. Nonetheless, he drew on his faith unreservedly as his unsinking endurance unlocked a rain of hope as he waited for an answered prayer despite the tedium or shall I say improbability of help. Nearly day 3 clocked in, tired and weary owing to sleepless nights, when a light nibbled the darkness of the place while conversing folks sounded closer in his direction. Such an emotional power-packed entrance for the South African Diver to have ransomed a solo survivor.

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Source: pixabay

He was rescued.

In disbelief, Harrison could not contain the joy he felt that very moment. He just saw a miracle coming in an inch which was beyond his imagination. Without impediment, he was taxingly transported by the rescue divers to a safe shelter, he fainted due to a life-threatening duel survival. But his consciousness was reclaimed after some medics midwife his need for an overall robustness.

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Source: pixabay

His fear of sea diving brought him to an epitomic level of courage of being a great rescuer, and diver.

In 2015, unthinkably he conquered another fear winning over a challenge by employing himself as a rescue diver and fixer of oil ship tankers even deeper in the ocean by which the latter had almost seized his life.

REFLECTION

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Source: pixabay

The word CHANCE is as powerful as man's success. It is a word so magical and mysterious to deliberate even by scholars and intellectual giants around the planet. For instance, some would have resented a brutal dilemma dreaming of having it occured by somebody else instead and not the ones you have felt pitied on. In Cebuano dialect it we might say, "Nganong siya paman ang namatay, kato nalang untang datu ug way gibuhi etc."

In this sense, chance is not random; a hit or miss. However, it is planned by purpose and that purpose is for us witnesses to garner reflective entities of life. Every chance given should be held dear as one last shot because not everyone has a second mortal existence to live. So play with the cards you are dealt with or else you will lose the game.

Great to know that this life offers chances. There are many, few, or even solo one-last chances. But the option is neither applicable nor discernable. These statements are read enough to get the gist of the reality. Chances are presented but the exact hour has been locked in. Your only password is to take every chance whenever it is possible.

Bottom line of the story is that Jesus Christ is our ultimate Savior. His strength is perfect when ours is gone. His knowledge and wisdom are fathomless when ours is lacking. He knows every exact detail of our lives for He scripted it long before we were born, for the purpose of unfolding His greatness in our lives.

That would be all for today my friends. Until my next blog. Bye for now.☺️

Note: Photos are not mine, they are sourced from Pixabay and other royalty-free photos.

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Hi @crownrich. Welcome to The Ink Well! We are happy to have you here.

See below for tips and important information about our community. But first, we must ask you to replace some of your images that do not come from royalty-free sites. For example:

  • The chef image is a premium Freepik image that you found in a Google search. Please do not use any images you find in Google searches, as they are not copyright-free. And that one in particular comes from the Premium Freepik collection, which requires a fee.
  • The image of the man crying is from a Google search. It must be replaced.
  • The image of the people in the water is an istockphoto image, which must be replaced. istockphoto requires payment for it to be used.
  • The picture of the man in the diving gear is from a Google search. It must be replaced.
  • The image of the man at sunset is from a Google search and must be replaced.

You can easily find replacements for these images on Pixabay, Pexels, or Unsplash, which are the copyright-free sites we recommend.

Here are a few tips for getting acquainted with The Ink Well:

  • Be sure to read The Ink Well community rules at the top of the community home page, and check out our FAQ about The Ink Well.
  • We accept two kinds of short stories in The Ink Well: fictional stories and creative nonfiction stories.
  • You can find some great articles on fiction story writing in our catalog of fiction writing tips.
  • You can find information about what we are looking for in creative nonfiction stories in this post.

And please be sure to engage in the community by reading and commenting on the work of other community members. We ask everyone who post in The Ink Well to read and comment on at least two other stories for each one published.

We will curate your story once you fix the images. Thank you!

Thank you @theinkwell for these important guidelines. I'll be replacing thses photos asap.☺️

Thank you very much for fixing those images, @crownrich. They are all fine now! Thank you for sharing this interesting story in The Ink Well.

And now for some more tips! As mention in our introductory notes above, we accept two types of short stories: Fictional stories and creative nonfiction stories. Fictional stories are made up from your imagination. Creative nonfiction stories are from your own life experience. You can learn more about creative nonfiction in this post.

Please be sure to read the work of other community members, and you will learn more about the genre. This is also important because, as mentioned yesterday, we ask everyone who posts in The Ink Well to read and comment on the work of other community members.

Welcome again, and we look forward to reading more of your work.

Thank you so much @theinkwell for your patience, guidance, and support to new writers like me.

The story has a lot of inconsistencies. First, there's the "tugboat oil tanker" - that doesn't exist. It's either an oil tanker ship or a tugboat, which are two different types of vessels. Second, what is an "air pocket"? There's no such equipment on board that lasts for 52 hours. The only similar safety equipment is the EEBD (Emergency Escape Breathing Device), used in confined spaces in case of a fire in the engine room, providing 15 minutes of air to escape.

These details clash with the experience of a merchant mariner and make the story lose realism. In any situation endangering lives at sea, there are established procedures continuously practiced to prevent loss of life. In this case, it would be abandoning the ship, most likely because it's sinking, although you don't specify what happened. While these details might be skipped to add action and drama, there are standard procedures for abandoning the vessel using lifeboats or life rafts.

I hope this feedback helps improve your story. Greetings!

Thank you @ricardo993 . I'll improve my writinh next time

Hello maam