Since we are living out of our tents this month on the beach in Haiti, two of my friends and I decided to see if we could use one of the Haitian fishermen’s boats to go out in the ocean to see the sunrise. When we asked our ministry contact about it though she said it was a great idea, but if we took a Haitain man’s fishing boat it is sort of similar to taking his car and we might end up getting chased down the beach with a machete and cussed out in Creole. She suggested though that we take the yellow canoe that has been sitting in the yard for a while. She didn’t know whose it was or why it was there but she said we were welcome to it.
The next morning we decided to go for it. So Sarah Craycroft, Ben Mullet, and I climbed into the boat around 5:40am and pushed off from shore. The sunrise was absolutely stunning and it was such a sight to see of God’s awesome creation. Our original goal in taking the boat out each morning for the sunrise was to have some time out there worshipping God in the midst of his creation and thanking him for the morning and the day. Around 6:30am or so we were well out to shore past all of the floating lobster traps and we decided to pray. Right after Ben started to pray in this awesome and beautiful moment where we could totally feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, someone called out… “um, guys I think we’re sinking!”
We all opened our eyes and realized that the water level was just about level with the rim of the boat. I looked down and realized my feet were covered in the warm ocean water…ehhh not so good of a sign. There we two cup size holes leading down to the bottom portion of the boat and as I looked down into the holes I realized the whole bottom buoyant portion of the boat was filled with water ehhh definitely no good! We were taking on water fast and were a good long distance from shore with no life vests…good thing we were all good swimmers or this next part would have really sucked. Oh and I forgot to mention that these waters are all covered with schools of jellyfish in the mornings and afternoons…yeah for sinking ship then huh!
So as we were taking on water quicker and quicker Ben and Sarah started rowing as fast as they could to shore and I was on all fours covering the two holes with my hands trying to keep the bottom buoyant portion of the boat from filling up even more with the water going through the holes from the upper level of the canoe. It was such a comical sight of me on all fours and them rowing as quickly and frantically as possible that I just couldn’t stop laughing and soon enough we were all laughing. Sarah suddenly yelled out “I can’t row when I’m laughing,” and then Ben yelled Rachel start scooping out water, so I quickly abandoned my hole covering mission and began scooping water with my hands as fast as humanly possibly which was clearly still a loosing battle. Soon enough we were completely sitting in warm ocean water (thank you Lord it was warm!), so we all abandoned ship. Then the nose of the boat went up in the air as the boat started to go downward and all I could at moment was “oh no this is what happened in Titanic when the boat sank…. that mean’s she’s going down!” Thankfully enough we were able to get the boat right side up again at least. So there we were the three of us stranded in the middle of the ocean with an upside down boat, two paddles, and a pair of flip-flops. In America there would be some kind of boat or skidoos probably that would come see if we needed help, but nope we are in the middle of some random ocean cove in Grand-Gove, Haiti far from everything and the only way we were getting back to shore was if we swam there…and so… it began. We certainly were a sight to behold the three of us kicking through the water dragging this massive yellow canoe behind us and roaring out in laughter the whole way. About half way to shore the boat started going under again and we had to dive down and swim upward over and over again to push the boat back up to the surface. I mean hey this wasn’t our boat and there was definitely no way we were going to let it go swim with the fishies at the bottom of the sea.
After about half an hour of dragging the boat behind us we finally made it to shore! Whewww we were alive and no jelly fish stings halleluiah! Then we realized we were quite a bit down shore from our tent site and the boat was all full of water in the bottom compartment so it was super heavy and impossible to move. It took us three and four Haitians to get the boat drained and dragged down the shore. We were still laughing all the way to the end and the Haitians were still laughing at us crazy American’s in the end too so needless to say it was a very entertaining morning!
That was literally one of the most awesome and memorable mornings of my life! I would totally do it all over again. It was like God was saying I am with you and I want you to have an incredible adventure this morning that will be completely unique! I am happy to report that later that day we found the two culprits…which were two holes at the very bottom of the boat that were letting in the water. We plugged them up with a thick stick and duck tape and took the boat out again this morning and didn’t sink, yeah! I am totally looking forward to morning sunrises with Jesus and friends this month and then coming back to shore to eat some fresh mangos off the tree above my tent and then head off to do ministry for the day around 7:30am.
