Land! I can’t believe it.
I am touching land. I am, unfortunately, not standing on it, but my hands are stroking the black granular form of sandstone. I caress it. Exhausted, I lay my face against the cold, black sandstone and regale in its texture while I continue to caress the rock with my cold, frozen palms. I swing my dead legs under me, and with ice cold toes I try to find a foothold on the cliff face. At the same time, my hands mechanically grope in the darkness for something to hold onto. I find a crevice with my left hand and then a bulge in the rock with my right — shoulder width apart. I brace myself for a climb.
I have never learned to rock climb, but I am about to have my first lesson. I look up into the darkness and I estimate about twenty-five feet at about a 60° slope. Hmmm. Can I do it? Do I have it? Is there anything left?
With a surge of an Arnold Schwarzenegger muscle flex, I scream as I pull my body out of the water for the first time in well over three hours. I slam my hands forward and upward, chasing them with my feet. Miraculously everywhere I place my hands I find an outcropping of rock to grasp, and likewise my feet. I rocket up the rock face of this cliff to the top, spin around and slam my bum down on the summit, laboriously breathing and coughing.