Tsunami Trouble

Bob, a fifteen-year-old, sea lover, always dreamed to be a sailor. At dawn every day, when fledglings were chirping for breakfast, Bob gazed at the sea near home longingly. After years of strong desire for a trip of his life time at sea, he couldn’t resist the temptation any more. Springing into action, he zoomed out into his garden to build an ocean-blue, wooden boat to set sail to sea.

The boat, from the prow to the stern, was about the size of a Mercedes-Benz GLE. The hull was made of wood and a few planks were lain across for sitting. There were a simple motor for propulsion and a rudder for changing directions. As soon as he finished, he tiptoed out of his home, not to get caught by his mum who was afraid of losing Bob forever to the sea. Bob met his muscular friend Tom in his garden. They hauled the boat onto a trailer to wheel it to the shore. Before leaving, Bob and Tom grabbed a surfboard each.

Since he lived by the sea close to a place where two tectonic plates met, it was not unusual to experience natural disasters such as earthquake and tsunami. A towering tall tidal wave unexpectedly came from nowhere, crashing down on them and gave them a chill down their spines. Luckily, they merely survived the giant wave but they started sailing in circles because of the broken rudder from the powerful wave.

Worst of all, what they didn’t know was that the wave was just the first one. A moment later, their relief turned to a heart-pounding fright that they wished they had never been born because another humongous tsunami was raging in their direction. Bob spied around his weary, little boat for the surfboards and barked, “We only have one option to live through this wretched predicament and that is to surf above the tsunami…”

Tom wailed to Bob, “Alright, let’s climb it!” They seized their surfboards and jumped overboard into the freezing water.

The upsurging force of the water smote their whole body like bee stings. Water splashed and sploshed. Their bodies were plunging to the bottom of the sea but their surfboards tugged them back to the surface and they clambered onto the surfboards. Glancing up slowly, they saw a tsunami as almighty as a thirty-two-storey tower block. They huddled together in terror and murmured to one another, “Are we going to climb this…?”