I’ll never forget the day mum helped me catch a wave as a teenager. As we stood in the ocean waiting for my ride on a handheld surf board, three waves piled on top of each other and the shallow water receded into the approaching triple-decker. There was no turning back. Three waves crashed me onto the sand, my board went flying, my bathing cap swished off, and I surfed underwater. My feet were the only evidence of my feat—they rode into shore facing their soles to the sun.
Although we laughed at the absurdity of the situation, I resolved to stay above water in the future. This decision has stuck with me
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throughout married life with Robert, a man who loves the water—swimming, snorkeling, diving, sailing, fishing, and boating. I only participated when I was on the water and not in it. Even so, Robert had his own share of excitement.
In the 1980s we crewed on the sailboat of my co-worker, David. Robert steered the rudder, I worked the ropes, and David unfurled the sails. But Robert couldn’t see what lay ahead, I couldn’t tie the ropes, and Robert abandoned the rudder to help me. As we headed dead center for a moored boat, David jumped in to avert a collision! And he never invited us to crew for him again.
In the 1990s, Robert courted three different water disasters.
His joyride on a Jet Ski turned into terror when he got lost on his way back to our lakeside camping ground. He tried a shortcut across the lake, but it was so cold and choppy that he went numb and his joints hurt from cutting through the waves. When he went back to the shoreline, the weeds clogged up the Jet Ski, twice. It took him three hours to find his way to our campsite.
When snorkeling on the Coral Coast of Viti Levu, Fiji, an electric eel engraved its teeth marks across Robert’s second and third fingers. Medical attention was needed. The good news was that the doctor on call was at the hotel; the bad news was that the doctor was in the bar having a few drinks. We reluctantly went with the doctor to his off-site clinic, but only because another staff member was the designated driver. Given the doctor’s inebriated state, Robert accepted a tetanus shot, but declined sutures.
Robert’s way of preparing himself for hip replacement surgery was to snorkel at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo, Florida. But in addition to swimming among fish common to the reef, a school of barracudas surrounded him. Happily, he did not look like a menu item.
On Robert’s bucket-list trip to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, his dwarf body shape prevented him from managing a scuba-diving oxygen tank. Unwilling to give up, he safely descended about 12 feet donned in a glass diver helmet attached to an oxygen hose. I was content to view the fish and coral from a glass-bottom submarine.
This post includes scenes from the second book in my dwarfism memoir trilogy, “Pass Me Your Shoes: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith.” Read more at https://angelamuirvanetten.com/pass-me-your-shoes/.
