I never got to swim with turtles.

This was one of lowlights from my first and second to last cruise, a dozen or so years ago. It was to be one of those guided experiences you pay extra for, the kind that are often underwhelming, but I believed the chance to spend time with a family of sea turtles could not disappoint. Unless it doesn’t happen.

A storm was to blame. The Caymans can only be approached via small tender boats, and the weather was deemed too treachourous. So instead of laying hands on the shell of an ancient reptile, I was exiled on the bloated pleasure cruiser, nothing to occupy me but the bottomless buffet.

I imagine an altered version of that experience, one in which I rebelled:
My decision to commandeer the tender boat was not one of malice; it was born of desperation. Taking the vessel was easy. Driving it was not.
I didn’t mean to sink the boat. In my defense, I’d never driven one before, and there was a storm after all. I was eight feet below the roiling sea when my mind split in two, one half believing this was the dumbest (and last) mistake of my life, the other part thinking, what a way to go! My plunge toward the bottom was arrested by an object weathered and smooth, like river stone. It was a turtle. It carried me on its back, speaking to me, not by voice, but through its uncanny manner of swimming—partnering with the current, not fighting.

On way join its friends, the turtle said, We are the storm.