For the longest time, my best friend since childhood was
obsessed with northern British Columbia up in Canada.
I guess to some people that might sound like an odd place to
become fixated on, but once I saw some of the pictures on her
Instagram feed posted by hiking influencers who often visited
the region, I started to understand why Northern BC is
one of the most beautiful places in the entire world.
Although Lana, my BFF, wasn't an active hiker or anything, she
fell in love with the place. She said it was one of her
dreams to visit Atlan Provincial Park, all because of this
mountain they called the Cathedral.
Just below the peak, there's a strip of flat land with a small
lake on it that turns piercing blue in the summer.
Lana was totally obsessed with it.
She had one photo of it as her phone background for months on
end. When she finally switched it up
for another, it was yet another picture of the cathedral.
The last straw was when she started saying things like, it
sucks I'll never get to visit it, I don't have anyone to go
with. I guess I just wanted to be that
kind of friend that helped her dreams come true.
So I started looking into how to get there.
I found out that we could catch a seaplane to a place called
Peggy's Island, and from there a wilderness tourist company could
take us all the way over to the foothills of the cathedral by
boat. After that, it was really just a
case of climbing the cathedral slopes, which apparently weren't
all that steep. And then there you go.
We were at my best friend's number one favorite location on
earth, a place she thought she'd never, ever see.
I figured if I planned the whole thing in secret, told her to
expect a weekend vacation to Cancun around the date of her
29th birthday, and then actually pulled the whole thing off, I'd
be the greatest friend in the history of friends.
It took a load of saving and planning, but eventually I was
able to spring the surprise on her.
For months I had been telling her that we were headed down to
Mexico for a few days in the sun, which is how I made sure
that she had a valid passport without alerting her to my real
plan. Then, on the very same morning
that we were due to fly down to Cancun, I got to see her face
when I told her that we weren't headed to Mexico.
We were headed to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island, where we would
catch a seaplane all the way up to Peggy's Island in the
Cathedral. She was ecstatic, and although
it meant that she had to totally repack, I'd made her dream come
true. But if I had known what I was
getting us into, I wouldn't have been so happy at all.
We caught our flights up to Vancouver, made our way to Port
Hardy, and then flew all the way up to northern BC in our very
own tin bucket of a chartered seaplane.
That flight alone could have made for its own scary story,
but we made it up to Peggy Island safely and set up our
tents at one of the campsites they had there.
After that, we had our first face to face with the person who
would be our tour guide the following day.
Charles was around the same age as Lana and me, late 20s or
early 30s, and to be totally honest, he was a very beautiful
man. You could tell that he worked
out a bunch and wore a tight Ranger style uniform to show it
off, but he also pulled it off. He had deep brown eyes and a
mustache that somehow didn't make him look like a creep, but
only more masculine. He was handsome, charming,
funny, and we thought that we'd hit a total jackpot with him
being assigned as our tour guide.
After walking us through the plan for the next morning, we
went back to our campsite and relaxed until it was time to
sleep. The next morning we met up with
Charles bright and early, had a little hot breakfast over at the
tour center, and then climbed into the boat that took us
across the lake to where the cathedral was.
Charles was just as charming as he had been the day before, even
in spite of it being so early in the morning, and he even took us
on a small tour of the lake, stopping so we could take
pictures before heading over to the shore on the other side.
It took us a while to get up to the flat part of the mountain.
We've been going hiking together in the run up to the trip,
putting Lana through some unexpected mountain climbing
training. But even with all we'd done,
hiking up the cathedral was tough.
We were spent by the time we reached the flat section that
we'd seen so many times on Instagram.
But when we did, it was every bit as magical as in the
pictures, which meant each of us got very emotional.
Charles just watched on with a smile, letting us have a little
moment together. Then, at some point, I looked
over to see him talking into his radio.
Charles had been checking in with the tour center every so
often the whole time that we'd been out, so seeing him talking
into his radio wasn't unusual or concerning in the slightest.
Lana and I carried on doing our thing, taking pictures and
videos, etcetera, until suddenly Charles called out that we had
to end the trip prematurely. I remember turning around to see
him looking kind of anxious before asking why exactly we
needed to cut things short. We'd agreed to climb a little
more of the mountain so we could get some more shots of the views
on the other side. So as much as we were happy to
be up there, we felt a little short change that Our guide was
suddenly calling time on the proceedings.
I remember asking why we needed to head back early, and I'm
being 100% honest when I say that if he'd given any kind of
half decent answer I would have complied without complaint.
But when I asked why, all Charles said in a very
uncharacteristically rude way, was don't question my decisions.
I guess that on paper that sounds fine and that maybe some
kind of unforeseen problem had arisen, but I literally cannot
overemphasize how much don't question my decision sounded
like because I said so. I asked again why we needed to
head back early, and was almost stunned into silence when the
same man who'd been veritably Prince Charming just 24 hours
previously suddenly became incredibly rude and abrupt.
And not just rude. This might be hard to describe,
but Charles almost seemed scared, and scared in a way that
he was trying to mask it with bravado.
And this led me to keep asking him why we had to leave early.
Because naturally, if we were facing any kind of real danger
like a storm or something similar, then we wanted to know
about it. We'd also paid for a whole day's
worth of our tour guide time, so we wanted to know if we'd be
getting a partial refund or something to that effect.
I guess this makes us sound like total Karen's in a way, but I
swear to God if Charles had just said something like OK ladies,
we've got a sudden Stormfront heading in so we just need to
conclude this tour a little earlier than expected, we both
would have been like OK no problem let's go.
But we felt like we were being kept in the dark by a guy who's
sudden turn in behavior was deeply alarming and that just
didn't sit right with me at all. Eventually, Charles said F this,
turned around, and then started walking off towards the trail
which led back down the mountain.
But he didn't just wander off either.
It looked like he was walking off as fast as he possibly
could, and considering he was a tall, fit guy and an experienced
hiker, it wasn't long before he put a very worrying amount of
distance between Lana and me, who by that point had no choice
but to follow quickly. We kept yelling for him, calling
out Charles's name and begging him to wait up so we could catch
up to him. But he didn't stop.
He didn't turn around, he just kept on walking down the
mountain side, putting more and more distance between us as time
went by. It got to the point where Lana
and I thought that he was going to leave us behind and all we
had with us was our bags with a little bit of water, some snacks
and some waterproof material. We had no maps, no compass,
nothing to tell us where we were exactly or which direction we
were going. So if Charles actually left us
there alone, we would be in a lot of trouble.
It was Lana who first suggested that he might just leave us
there and drive off in the boat, and when she did, we both went
into full panic mode. We started screaming, like full
on screaming for Charles, begging him to wait for us and
not leave us behind. And then finally he stopped.
But he didn't just stop dead on the trail, and he didn't start
walking back up towards us either.
He just started pacing back and forth and talking to himself.
And I say talking to himself, but it was more like he was
walking in a circle, fist clenched, and every so often
he'd yell something that either we could or couldn't understand.
As we got closer, he started yelling things at us in the same
sort of way. Like he was literally so furious
that you could only make out every other thing he was saying.
I managed to catch things like always got to have things your
way and never think about anyone but yourselves.
But the rest was pretty much garbled yells.
I guess instinct kicked in for me because I started apologizing
to Charles over and over, because by then I'd have done
almost anything to get him to calm down so we could just leave
in peace. Lana started apologizing too,
but it didn't seem to do any good.
He just kept pacing around and yelling about how we needed to
listen, how no one ever listened to him, and how was he supposed
to act when no one listened to him.
It was only then that it occurred to me that something
else was going on. There wasn't an emergency, or at
least there didn't seem to be one if Charles was content to
just stop on the trail like that.
But then something had definitely happened to make him
start acting that way, and the change seemed to occur after he
talked into his radio for a minute.
I still had no idea how the two things were connected, as in
like what was said that made him go crazy, But it definitely
seemed like he was having some kind of breakdown right there on
the mountain side. We kept apologizing, begging him
to just calm down and take us back to the tour center, and
although we eventually agreed, Charles's mood did not improve.
He yelled at us to follow him and not fall behind, and then he
marched off again at the same speed that he had previously.
Luckily, we were much closer to where the boat was parked, so we
didn't fall too far behind, and we were able to make it to the
shore just as he was starting up the boat.
He was still yelling when he told us to climb in, and he also
seemed to be gradually calming down, like he was on the back
end of whatever he was going through.
Only with that in mind did we climb back into the boat, but
Charles hadn't finished just yet.
As he drove us across the lake, Charles carried on that thing of
being quiet for a while and then yelling a curse word or
something. But he also drove way faster
than he had before, to the point that it was actually scary.
Lana and I kept yelling slow down, and at first he just
yelled stuff back that was drowned out by the sound of the
engine and the water. We went a little further and we
started yelling again for him to stop, and then suddenly he did.
He stopped the boat right there in the middle of the lake,
turned around and just sort of seethed at us.
He was so flushed, his whole face was pink, his fists were
clenched, and I swear I've never seen anyone's eyes go so wide in
my whole life. I thought he was going to hurt
us, kill us even, And out there in the middle of the lake, we
had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
It was like he was thinking about it, really weighing up his
options. And the voice that was saying
don't hurt them was only just barely winning.
For as long as I live, I'll never, ever forget the sound of
Lana saying please don't in this really shaky voice.
I think that actually made him snap out of it a little, because
after that he turned around, got back in the little driver's
seat, and then carried on driving the boat back to the
dock or whatever. And only by this time, in
complete silence, all Lana and I did was sit there in the back of
the boat, eyes glued to the back of Charles's head, shaking with
fear while we each hoped that he wouldn't turn around or stop the
boat again. As soon as we arrived back at
the dock, Lana literally jumped off the boat onto the wooden
dock before Charles had a chance to even bring the boat to a
complete stop. I was quick to follow her but as
Lana ran all the way back to our tents I turned back to give
Charles a piece of my mind basically about how we were
going to get him fired for the way he treated us.
Again, total Karen thing to say but it was literally the first
thing that came to mind and all I was thinking about in the
moment was warning his boss or Co workers that he was having
some kind of violent episode. I guess I was feeling brave
because we were back on dry land, but as Charles climbed up
onto the dock, I kept on berating him.
Which admittedly was not the best idea ever because after
finding his feet he walked towards me, wrapped a hand
around my throat and started to squeeze.
It was probably the single scariest moment of my entire
life, seeing those wild eyes come back again, knowing that he
could crush my neck if he wanted to.
And worst of all, I felt like an idiot.
I should have run back to the tent with Lana or straight to
the tour center to warn Charles's Co workers.
And I paid for it by getting choked so hard that I thought I
was going to die. Luckily though, people had
already heard me yelling at Charles and we're approaching
the dock by the time he grabbed my throat.
Within just a few seconds we were being separated by a bunch
of guides and campers. 2 of Charles's male Co workers walked
him off someplace and we didn't see where.
And as the people around us started asking what had
happened, we broke down into tears.
As we told them, Charles had been fine one second, then the
next it was like he was a totally different person.
It was honestly so scary to see that kind of change in him, and
we had literally no idea what had happened to make him act
like that. The head of the Tour Company
then brought us to their office, got us some coffee, and offered
to contact the seaplane people so we could leave that day if
possible. And they were honestly super
awesome about the whole thing, probably because they were
terrified of getting sued. But all we wanted was a promise
that Charles would be fired and to know exactly what he'd been
told that made him go crazy like that.
The head of the company didn't know everything that had been
going on in Charles's life, but she had been the one to pass
along that piece of news on the radio.
Apparently she'd gotten a call from his wife asking if Charles
was available to talk. Obviously he wasn't, because he
was out conducting a tour with us.
The head of the company then asked Charles's wife if she'd
like to call back and she said no and that she never wanted to
hear from him again. All she wanted was for the
company head to pass along a message.
I caught him cheating again, I'm taking the kids and he's never
going to see any of us ever again.
Personally, I'd have waited until after the tour to tell him
such life changing piece of news, but I guess the head of
the company thought it was the kind of news Charles needed to
hear right away. That part did make me consider
hiring an attorney, but like I said, they promised to fire
Charles and were good enough to tell us something they had every
right to withhold, so I decided not to.
Filing a lawsuit would have destroyed their company all over
one dumb mistake. And above all, it was Charles's
decision alone to act like such a monster, no one else's.
And besides, no amount of money could help with the guilt I felt
afterward. Lana said that she didn't need
an apology, that it wasn't my fault, and I understand that,
but I still feel terrible for promising my best friend the
trip of her dreams and pretty much having it turn into a
living nightmare. When I look back at one of my
hitchhiking adventures, I now realize just how lucky I was
that I wasn't raped or murdered at the time.
I was having fun in the 60s and never considered that anything
really bad could ever happen to me.
I mean come on, it was the decade of free love and
acceptance. New agers and hippies were
trying to see the beauty in life, not the heinous.
Sometimes being naive could blind someone to the realities
of life or even certain situations like hitchhiking.
I have to give you a little background before you read about
the truly scary part of my story.
The summer after high school I worked at my parents gas station
and trade for tuition at a Business School.
In the fall I tried to be good but got myself kicked out.
Shortly after I mastered typing and lost the art of shorthand.
Whereas this has always been a valued skill, it was really all
I learned so I didn't bother finding another job.
In 1969, the lore of drugs and rock'n'roll coupled with teenage
angst and hormones gave me one choice.
Grab life by the balls and run as fast as you can.
I kissed the hippie lifestyle and embraced every romantic
notion to become a full blown hippie.
Headbands, smoking pot, listening to music society
deemed unacceptable, entertaining ideas of a
different age. I moved down the road a little
bit to Eugene OR, a university town with a football team and
everything. It was a bit of a culture shock,
but with my new perspective on life, a culture shock was kind
of what I was looking for. I wanted things to be new,
different and above all exciting.
My very first communal house was on Gate St. just blocks away
from the student union, also known as the Cannabis campus.
I didn't hitchhike around town much because I was young and
either walked or just got a ride with rich friends who had cars.
I saved myself for the righteous times at the coast, and that was
only about an hour away. I'd stick out my thumb, hitch a
ride in a slug bug with hippies that shared their brew and pot.
Sometimes I would even get invited to gnarly parties with
hunks and jamming music. What a gas.
This is a true story. My best friend and I decided we
were stoked to go to the coast and watch the sunset.
A big hulking greaser type guy picked us up in his Dodge
Charger muscle car and took us the final 20 miles.
He'd recently come home from Vietnam and even though we
weren't war mongers, he thought we'd be stoked to show him a
groovy time. We partied for a long time with
a bonfire on the beach, wieners on a stick, and some boss weed.
She married that man, and you know what else?
After her brother came home from Vietnam, I married him.
We both got divorced, but she's still my best friend.
After 50 years of growing up and now growing old.
I hitched mostly alone, went to places like San Francisco just
to say I did. So other times when someone
would want to go somewhere, I'd offer to be the freaking charge,
guiding us down a major highway with our thumbs out.
It never soaked in past my drug dilated eyes that something bad
might have happened to us on one of these trips.
I was and still am naively confident that I can take care
of myself. Nevertheless, sometimes things
happen that scare me now a lot more than they did back then.
This was another time and a different friend that wanted to
go down to Cucamonga, CA. When she said the name, I
thought she was screwing with my head and I told her I needed to
see the sign before I believed it.
It was such a stupid name. That's how easy it was to find
somewhere out of sight to waste our time.
If it had a weird enough name, that was a reason to spend a
weekend hitching there. We beat feet on a hot summer
day. The rides were short, but so was
the wait time. I suspect our perky, youthful
attitude was apparent in her big chest and my cute butt.
I know what you're thinking, that I'm exaggerating, but these
were the real bartering pieces of the road.
When we hitchhiked with a man in our company, we had to do our
best to hide the freaking guy because we knew girls were more
likely to get picked up. Once we got a car to stop, we
put our bubbling faces up in the window and the driver didn't
care if it was a guy or two as long as a lady sat up front to
do the entertaining. But if it was just me or one or
two of my pretty friends with nice bodies, we were flying down
the highway having people fight to give us a ride.
That is such a scary thought to me now.
What the hell were we doing exposing our bodies on the
street in order to get a stranger to stop?
Like I said at the start, I'm truly amazed that I was never
murdered. Around Medford we could see the
Cascade Mountain range and we're ready for cooler temperatures
and a change of scenery. Our last ride was a bug with
working windows and Primo weed. We were having a blast.
Excited about catching some California rays?
Along comes this fancy new F100 we PE signed each other for
luck. This truck would surely have
some AC and the Chrome Dome would be safe.
I slid to the middle and my friend squished her tall frame
next to the door. Less than 10 miles down the road
this guy starts talking in riddles.
I love the way this generation accepts everybody is open minded
about new things. He said.
He rambled on, then explained how he's into flower power and
free love out of nowhere and in a flash his thing was out and he
asked. You don't mind if I get off, do
you? My face turned towards her.
My eyes got so big they nearly popped out of their sockets.
What the hell? I said.
I turned to look out the window. This was slowly turning into a
nightmare. This was real danger and I
didn't have any means of escape. I was literally sitting right
next to the psycho. We were flying down the road at
80 mph. Even if we had to jump, we'd be
nothing but a blood stain on the road.
When it was all said and done, he's booking it at freeway
speeds, his right hand doing the Johnson jerk at the speed of
light. Thankfully it's over pretty fast
and he goes right back to talking about politics or music
or something else. It was all smiles, completely
polite when he dropped us off a few miles down the road.
When his sperm white truck disappeared over the hill, we
dropped to our knees in a laughter that was mixed with
hysteria and a little paranoia. We still had a long way to go,
needed to flip flop our head away from Peter Guy and towards
the bitching times ahead. Whenever I swap stories with
hitchhikers, this is definitely the most common one that I hear.
It's like everybody who's ever stuck their thumb out, man or
woman, has ended up on the wrong end of some driver wanking it.
It's super weird. I think it has to do with the
power of actually driving the car, but who knows.
It's fortunate that most of my trips were playful and exposed
me to some interesting people. I was pretty insulated inside my
rural community. The college town itself had very
little diversity. I know how naive it sounds, but
I met my first out of the closet gay as a 19 year old.
It was the wee hours in the morning on the outskirts of
Chicago. I figured I would be standing by
the exit rail till dawn. It was bone cold, I was dead
tired and a misery level 4 had just kicked in.
Then I saw a car coming out of the fog.
It slowed down and stopped directly in front of me.
I didn't even have to run down the road, wondering if they
would take off again when I got close.
Sometimes jerks thought it was fun making the stupid hippie run
because, well, they always did. Anyway, they were cool heads,
only a few years older than me. At first, they started a banter
like they were movie mobster types.
I'm not scared. I'm wearing my gifted paracord
bracelet. I'm just an Oregon Hick and
these boys were deciding to educate me in the moment.
It turned out one guy was an actor and they were coming home
from a place. They were going to a party at
home with wine and hash and offered the couch if I wanted to
rest at this time of night. It sounded like a utopian dream
and I sure as hell hoped that they shared that hash.
We continue driving through the well lit streets to where the
worn out buildings are kept. I remember the stairwell was so
narrow that my backpack banged against the walls.
My goofy giggle echoed my awkwardness.
I don't remember exactly how far up it went, but I do remember
that they had this tiny window that looked out onto a
neighborhood that before tonight I never knew existed.
God, I was so young and unseasoned about big city ways.
The night unfolded with some wine and they didn't Bogart the
hash. It was weird how these guys
never mellowed out. They geared up and became the
most outrageously campy gaze I've ever met, like right out of
a movie. They got more and more wild,
more and more feminine, before eventually clothes started
flying off. I partied Hardy as long as my
hazy brain could last, but too much too soon and I had to
crash. I lay on the couch, loaded to
the Max, trying to absorb all the groovy expressions and
stories being thrown around. I felt so grown up hanging with
all these city people and wanted to season myself with their
worldly ways. I tucked that memory in tight
and felt like the flavor of me had just gotten a little
spicier. This experience was only scary
because at one point I woke up and two of them were trying to
tie my hands behind my back. I yanked free and asked what
they were doing, to which they both got very embarrassed and
started acting weird. They gave some form of excuse,
something like they were practicing for another play
scene and it involved tying up a person on the floor.
I said whatever and went back to bed, but part of me thinks I
might have interrupted something spooky back then.
I do have another trip that got way too hairy.
It was made worse by the Buffalo City pigs calling my parents in
Oregon at midnight. What had their freaky first born
done Now? It was barely dark and a
passenger car had picked me up just outside of Buffalo.
He said he was going to Albany, which would be a choice ride.
Usually the truckers are the only ones with the long freeway
stretches. The locals were the hip hop
around or go through the big cities to get into a nice cozy
car and be told it's going to be for a few hours.
That's good luck man. The guy was just typical.
It didn't bother me when he said he had to jump off the freeway
for a minute to check a construction site that he was
running. He went down the exit about a
mile or so, pulled into this little closed business parking
lot, turned off the car and as fast as a rattlesnake grabbed my
wrist. What the hell is going on with
this guy? What happened next is one of
those many impossibilities that have happened in my lifetime.
My right hand grabbed for the door handle.
At least one leg was reaching for the ground.
Out of nowhere, a cop pulls up on my side.
The guy immediately let's go. I yank my backpack over the seat
and was safe outside of the car. In just a moment.
I should have felt grateful I was saved from getting taken or
even murdered, but mostly I just felt panic.
Oh no, Oh no, I got a joint in my pocket.
How do I get rid of this since nothing really happened?
I thought when I told the cop what the guy did he would let me
go, maybe slap the guy around a little bit.
No, the damn pig decided I was lying about everything, told the
guy to take off and he would take care of me.
This nightmare scenario was getting worse as the guy that
was clearly about to hurt me just got let off the hook.
Whatever consequence was coming had my name written on it.
Now. I wasn't handcuffed, but I sat
in the back of the car. I never found a time where I
could eat or ditch the joint. I expected I'd be going to jail,
well, forever. I was really sweating back there
as I knew there wouldn't be a quick way out.
There's no sticking my thumb out this time or getting carried
away in a stranger's car. I was already in a stranger's
car and that act alone might mess up my life forever.
Thankfully, he didn't search me, but did call my parents and let
them know what their daughter was doing.
I can only imagine the helpless anguish they must have felt as
they didn't tell my parents that I was hitchhiking.
They told my parents I was a hooker soliciting in back
alleys. I mean, that's what it looked
like with the guy in the car. Now my relationship with my
folks is on the line. This was actually the scariest
part of the story though. Being alone with that cop was
just me and that one officer. After he got done with whatever
he needed to do to secure the scene, he came back and opened
up my door, told me to get out. Whoa, no way.
I guess this is my lucky day. Maybe he is letting me go wrong.
He looked me up and down a couple of times, even asked me
to spin around, then made some of the most disgusting threats
I've ever heard, explained exactly what he wanted to do to
me, how hard he'd do it, just that typical slimeball stuff.
Scary again, because I was powerless in this situation.
This guy could do whatever he wanted to do, shoot me, even
lie, and he would never see the inside of a jail cell.
All I could do was take his threats and hope to God they
stopped right there. After that he put me in the back
of the car, drove me to the station.
While we drove he reached a hand in the back seat like he wanted
to cop a feel, but I was done being a pushover.
I'd scream bite one of his fingers if one of them wormed
their way over to my legs for a little touch.
Got to the station unmolested where I was led into a holding
room. I sat in the hallway for a few
hours. Eventually they let me walk out
the front door and down the road.
I found a little hidden spot behind this dumpster.
Decided to just lean back, smoke the evidence and let well enough
alone for the night. There was clearly no help to be
had in the city, nobody I could turn to, so being on the street
kind of frightened me. I wouldn't be caught walking
around in the dark. So I just hid back there till
sunrise, then did my best to hustle a safe ride home.
I was young, clueless about how dangerous hitchhiking could be.
I was so mad at that cop in the moment for getting me in trouble
with my parents that it didn't even dawn on me what predicament
I had just escaped. Clearly that man had driven me
to some seedy back alley area of the city to hurt me back there.
How bad? I can't say for sure, but I will
say I later learned and found out that that area was a known
sight to dump off prostitutes. There were probably dead girls
back there while I was getting arrested.
It's how bad that area was. When you read this or hear this,
I'm sure you're yelling or saying to yourself, stop.
What the hell is wrong with you girl?
It's true I had a lot more miles notched in my backpack than
friends, but it seemed like my niche.
Also, these were much different times when peace and love was
the slogan and challenging the status quo was the decree.
I indulged in lots of pot and hallucinogens but never got
caught up in the hard drugs. I didn't trust myself.
Still, I wouldn't change one minute during this 2 1/2 year
stage of my life. Honestly, I wish I had the
stamina and a long weekend to do it all over again, even if I
still look back and shudder. While hitchhiking from London to
France, my girlfriend and I mistakenly tried to catch a lift
on the M20 off ramp. We had seen plenty of people
hitchhiking there before and didn't think much of it.
It was the busiest roadway leading in the direction we were
trying to go. The issue was that we had never
actually hitchhiked before and ultimately had no idea what we
were doing. A security car pulled up with
wailing sirens. A man in a yellow jacket jumped
out, barked at us to put our bags down, and waited for the
police. Not long after, a police car
arrived and two friendly young policemen told us that
hitchhiking was not allowed there.
They ended up giving us a lift to the port at Dover where we
caught a ferry to Calais. The police seemed pretty
understanding, especially after we spoke face to face and they
could see we were just a harmless couple trying to travel
for free. They offered us some advice
while driving us to the port and even more after we landed in
France. They were very understanding and
got us on the right foot towards our ultimate destination.
Our real mistake was not finding an onward lift from our fellow
travelers while on the ferry. The boat was packed with all
manner of cars and travelers, most of whom were paired up.
We were the only people on the boat without a ride.
The 2nd we hit the port in France.
Instead of networking during the ferry ride and securing a ride
to the next Township, we just sat with one another and
chatted. By the time we crossed the
channel, the other travellers were loaded up into their cars
and ready to hit the road. Exiting the ferry at Calais, we
walked out of the port and stood on the on ramp with our thumbs
out, holding a cardboard sign with our destination stenciled
on it in thick black ink. We were headed for Austria,
ultimately with a deadline to meet family travelling more
conventionally in Salzburg. It was naively optimistic to
have a date in mind when hitchhiking long distances.
As we walked out to get into our hitchhiking position, we watched
with growing realization as everybody just rolled by in
their cars. The problem immediately became
obvious. The port is designed to get cars
straight off the ferry and onto the motorway.
It doesn't lead anywhere else, so once every half hour or so
we'd get a single wave of cars rushing by.
The rest of the time? Zilch.
Again, these are people with their own schedules, trying to
quickly race off the ferry, through town and into the
mainland. We didn't have much of A choice,
so we just stood there, watching each pack of cars stream past
us, no one even slowing or looking in our direction.
We'd arrived early in the afternoon and soon it began to
get dark, making hitchhiking impossible and even dangerous.
At this point we were along a coast in a country that we
weren't from, and no one seemed interested in lending us a hand.
This is when the trip started to take a turn and our energy
teetered on that of defeat. We debated trying to get back
into the port and catch a bus into Calais, but decided it was
getting late, so we opted to camp on the coast and try again
the next day. This was kind of scary at first.
We didn't know what to expect in the dark, but we were committed
to whatever lay in store for us. I was doing everything in my
power to remain positive, even if it was just for my partner's
sake. But I could see the situation
starting to take a toll on her. Once we reached the dunes along
the coast, we realized that this stretch of coast is where all
the migrants and refugees who want to get across to England
camp out. It's a huge space for temporary
travelers of every variation. Some folks had been there for
weeks, even months. It seemed like a whole little
community with its own economy literally thriving right there
on the fringes of the desert. It gave us a bit of comfort as
there were plenty of women and children around, and there
didn't seem to be a huge cause for alarm from bandits or even
thieves, just generally good intention people waiting for
their turn to travel. So there we were, two young
Israelis in our little tent, surrounded by Arabic speaking
families and lots of young men. I'm sure we were completely
safe, but we didn't feel it inside that tent.
So many strangers around us were unsettling, but also kind of
disarming because none of them seem to be dangerous or scared
themselves. We just relaxed, cuddled, and
slowly drifted off to sleep. In the dead of the darkness
though, I heard the last thing I wanted to hear, somebody
fumbling with our zipper. I woke and just laid there
listening for a moment before my girlfriend woke up and jostled
me, urging me to take some form of action.
I cleared my throat and shouted at the top of my lungs that our
tent was occupied. We were armed inside and
prepared to call the police. The person outside immediately
let go of the zipper. Once I said this, I could tell
they were alone. No speaking, no communication
otherwise. I told them to leave and not
return to our tent and that's what they seem to do.
No more issues for the rest of that night.
I don't know what they wanted, but it was beyond bizarre.
It had to be a thief of some kind, right?
Perhaps even worse. I think the fact that I was so
loud drove them off immediately. Not so much the threats.
We were camped by some families that seemed to be good-natured,
so yelling of any kind would be sure to get somebody else's
attention. A few months later we read in
the papers that the police had raided the Calais encampment.
People were beaten, tents trashed.
This didn't happen to us, but I imagine it was terrifying for
anyone caught in the chaos. The next morning we woke up not
feeling very refreshed and decided to try out hitchhiking
again. We chose a spot where there was
room to pull over and enough of a straight for people to see us
and then slow down. It was the most logical place
for us to stick our thumbs out. It also got us away from the
majority of the desert dwellers that we had just spent the night
with. We spent that morning getting
cleaned up and presentable, as that was key in my mind.
Clean travellers seem to be more likely to get picked up. 8:00 AM
whoosh. A dozen cars whizzed by. 830
whoosh. 9:00 AM whoosh. 93010 o'clock. 11:00 noon whoosh,
whoosh, whoosh. We were getting seriously
demoralized. By now, out of our four days to
get to Salzburg, we had spent the first day and a half
standing in Calais cell phones, so there was no way to let our
family know that we were running late, or even if we were OK.
It was starting to dawn on me that this was a mistake.
We were potentially stranded without any idea of how long it
would take us to get back. 1:00 PM comes and goes. 2:00 PM the
same. Nobody even slows down.
My girlfriend at this point is just sitting dejectedly on our
bags while I try to look cheerful.
Nobody's going to stop for miserable looking hitchhikers at
this point though. There are large gaps between the
rushes of cars and for some reason the ferry traffic was
slowing down and with it our chances of getting a ride
anywhere. I could feel the hungry, prying
eyes of the desert dwelling campers behind us, eager for us
to return to the camp for the night so they could try their
hand at raping or robbing us. This isn't any kind of racial
slight, it's just the reality on the road.
Bad things can happen to hitchhikers going international.
230 Nothing. 3:00 PM Nothing. The usual wave of cars just
whizzing by us. But then out of nowhere a squeal
of brakes, a big black BMW at the rear of the pack comes to a
complete stop a good 300 meters beyond us.
Everybody else disappears over the horizon as our saviour slams
into reverse and accelerates the whole way, then squeals to a
stop right next to us. Get in.
Our Czech hero says his wife beside him handed him a Red Bull
every 100 kilometers. I don't remember their exact
business, but the couple seemed pretty well off, affluent and
very busy. In hindsight I think they were
high, probably on coke or some other stimulant.
They talked loud and fast and were interested in any kind of
discussion. I will call the driver Jacob and
his wife Cat. Jacob's foot is lead heavy, he
has a radar jammer to foil police speed traps, and he does
not go below 200 kilometers per hour all the way through France
and Belgium to Frankfurt, which is where he dropped us off and
I'll. Admit it felt.
Only like 10 minutes later, but was actually 600 kilometers
closer to our destination. To say that we were flying was a
drastic understatement, but we were grateful either way.
Jacob decided to stop here and stretch his legs while Kat used
the toilets inside. While we unloaded and eyeballed
the area, another big black BMW came over.
Jacob started having words with the driver in a language that we
didn't speak. Before Cat even returned, both
hatches lifted. Jacob and that stranger began
unloading duffel bags and suitcases from the car that we
were just in, then loading them into the other BMW that had just
rolled up some kind of bait and switch.
The cars were literally identical, even the drivers
looked similar. It was honestly kind of funny to
watch like a pair of cartoon characters.
As we unpacked our own stuff and slowly moved across the parking
lot, we watched as a nearby policeman took interest in the
pair of blacked out BMWs. At first it just started out
like a basic line of questioning, but within 10
minutes a whole fleet of investigators descended on the
checks and their suspicious vehicles.
My wife and I watched in horror as the police exposed Jacob and
Cat as drug runners or illegal transporters of some kind.
I never saw what was in the bags, but by the sudden turn out
of law enforcement, I knew it had to be drugs or guns getting
taken over the border and we were just sitting in the car
with them. Had we pulled over, especially
with Jacob's erratic driving, we'd all be under arrest and God
only knows for how long until things got cleaned up.
Jacob was a godsend for us, but by the end the real fortune was
being able to step away before he went down in the books.
Our next lift came much faster now that we were on real
roadways, with a friendly truck driver pulling up not 30 minutes
later. He welcomed us in and the cab
actually smelled fresh and clean with hints of herbs that he
liked to cook in there. My wife was run ragged by the
road and she wore it all over her face.
The truck driver was kind enough to let her sleep in the bunk in
the back of the cab. She did not hesitate to climb
right in and promptly fall asleep.
That just left. Me and the.
Trucker, and we'll call him Johann.
He was, I believe, a German citizen based on his looks and
dialect, but across the sprawling border of Europe, it's
hard to be sure of anybody's heritage.
We listened to music at first, but he quickly grew bored and
decided to talk with me instead. We shared our basic
pleasantries, where we were from, how he started trucking
and why we were hitchhiking. It was all a very simple
discussion and as we talked, Johann asked me some basic
things about my wife as well, which I answered not thinking
much of it. We rolled onto Munich and the
driver explained to me that this was all a very healthy hub for
travellers going in any direction.
Getting to Austria would be what he called smooth sailing.
We'd easily find a ride within a couple of hours.
Finally, this trip had turned into everything I wanted it to
be. He then explained he was headed
in a different direction so he could no longer help us.
I thanked him a million times over, explained that he had
literally saved our entire trip and he was very fortunate to
have the company. Still, I tipped him what I
thought was a respectable sum of cash, the least I could do,
except from the driver's perspective, it really wasn't.
He rolled his truck into a service station, further
explained that we could possibly find a ride even without leaving
the parking lot. Lots of truckers would be going
through Austria and would even be able to help for free or for
a decent price. I slowly was getting my things
together, half listening, also preparing to wake my wife.
It wasn't until I turned my focus on Johann for a minute
that I noticed he unzipped his pants and began stroking
himself. I sat there completely stunned,
unsure of what I was seeing was actually real.
He didn't even blink, just continued to talk, casually
looking at me and out the window.
I didn't bother asking. Clearly this was part of
whatever plan the trucker had in place.
I gathered all of our bags and shouted my wife's name to wake
up. It's time to leave.
Johann became immediately agitated, saying he let her use
the bed. The least we could do was stick
around and break it in with him. Honestly, I wasn't sure if he
wanted to do it with me or my wife, or both of us.
Maybe he just wanted to watch. Whatever the case, we were
literally trapped inside the cab of this man's truck as he
continued to pleasure himself and slowly undress.
My wife popped up, confused but alert, simply followed me
through the passenger door. Johann never shouted.
He didn't grab at us. I guess he knew better.
He knew we were already creating a scene.
He even kind of apologized through the door as I closed it
in his face, turned my back on his truck, and hurried my wife
to the trucking station. There were all manner of what
seemed like normal people to create this buffer between
ourselves and that creepy truck driver.
From there, I guess it really was smooth sailing.
We reached our destination well before the deadline.
After that trip though, my wife and I swore off hitchhiking
forever. She still to this day doesn't
know how close we came to trouble in that cab.
She just knows something was about to happen.
It's my job to protect her just like it was that day, even if
it's just from the strange, ugly truths.
Back in the late summer of 2. 1009 I was working on a tugboat
that was assisting an oil tanker off the coast of Louisiana.
There had been some storms and rough seas, so although we
weren't in any immediate danger, our tug had been helping to
stabilize the tanker, which was more vulnerable to the large
waves. I've always loved the water, and
I still do. But on the morning of August
17th, as we were guiding that tanker along the coast,
something put my love for the sea to the test in a big, very
bad way. I was in the bathroom when it
happened, Probably the worst place you can be when you get
hit by a freak wave. I had been awake for maybe no
more than 10 to 15 minutes, and then out of nowhere, everything
got turned upside down. One second the toilet was on the
floor and the next it was on the ceiling.
I tried to open the bathroom door, but all the lights
suddenly went out and I could hear the bathroom slowly filling
with water. I couldn't tell if it was blood
or seawater stinging my eyes. And then I finally got the
bathroom door open. But I didn't have long to
celebrate at all because I felt this heavy thunk as the tugboat
touched down on the seabed at least 100 feet below the
surface. When we got the door open
everything was dark, water was everywhere and I had no idea
which way I was facing. Our propeller was up, our
wheelhouse was down, and in the alley next to the watertight
door which led to an exit hatch. I saw two of my Co workers
struggling with the Hatch as the water levels continued to rise.
I panicked, thinking we'd all drown if we failed to get that
door open. So I did something completely
against my instincts and dived into the water to look for a
different way to escape. I don't imagine many of you have
been in a shipwreck before, but when your ship goes down like
ours did and takes on a ton of water, it rushes through your
ship in very odd patterns. Imagine pouring a gallon of
water into an Ant farm and watching how it reaches some
tunnels faster than others and creates little air pockets here
and there. Well, that's how I managed to
get swept into a second bathroom, this one attached to
the 2nd engineer's cabin, with the door having been swept shut.
As I pulled it in, it created one of those air pockets I had
just mentioned. At first, the water continued to
rise and I thought that I was going to be trapped in there and
drown, but to my relief, it didn't fill the bathroom
completely. It only filled up about 1/3 of
the way and then just suddenly stopped.
Part of the reason it didn't fill up was because we routinely
kept all the cabin doors closed. We did this mainly as a security
precaution, but it also secured parts of the ship from flooding
and meant that I could cling to a wash basin in my own private
air bubble at the bottom of the gulf.
As I stood there in the darkness, I started to hear my
Co workers screaming and yelling.
I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I figured that
they might have gotten the Hatch open.
And so with that in mind, I decided to do everything I could
to swim back to them. But when I tried to pry the
bathroom door open, the door handle snapped off in my grip.
I remember feeling a panic rising up in me again, one so
intense I thought that I might lose my mind right there and
then. But then suddenly it just
stopped and I felt a strange sense of calm wash over me.
Everything that had happened over the previous few minutes
had been so chaotic and terrifying, but after that door
handle snapped off in my hand, it felt like I had control of
the situation. I knew where I was, I knew what
I needed to do, and I had no choice but to solve the problem
of opening the door. It was that or die trying.
As crazy as it sounds to just think it to myself all these
years later that brought about that strange sense of calm.
It was just me and that bathroom door.
Whatever came next, we could cross that bridge once we came
to it. I remember spotting a vent and
thinking that if I pulled off the steel grill, I could
probably use it as some kind of tool.
Luckily it was strong enough for me to use to force open the
bathroom door, but that wasn't an instant thing.
It took a lot of time and effort and during the attempt I heard
the cries of my Co workers going silent one by one.
I thought they had escaped, but now I know different.
Once I had the bathroom door open, I was back in the 2nd
engineer's cabin. I saw two life jackets, each
with a small flashlight attached.
I put one in my mouth, lodged the other in the elastic of my
underwear, and then attempted to swim for the escape hatch
outside of the cabin. All the corridors were full of
water with no air pockets for me to use, meaning every time I ran
out of breath, I had to stop trying to open the Hatch and
swim back to my air pocket in the engineer's cabin to take a
breath. The first time I swam back, I
almost missed the door to the engineer's cabin.
It was dark, all the doors look the same and I knew that if I
got lost or confused I'd most likely drown.
I later found out the exact same thing happened to a Co worker
who drowned in the mess room after confusing it for some
place with an air pocket. To stop myself from getting
turned around, I tore off some fabric from one of the engineers
coveralls, tied it into a rope and then attached one end to the
door of the cabin so I could use it to guide myself back whenever
I ran out of breath. I tried again and again, but
still the Hatch wouldn't budget and I eventually decided that I
should save my strength, stay in my little air pocket and rethink
my attempts to escape. I had to just stay put, stay
calm and think. And I'm.
Not kidding when I say. Hours went by.
I ate tin sardines and drank canned soda just to keep my
energy levels up, but I had to keep my legs out of the water.
I knew I'd scraped my leg during one of my escape attempts, and
at first I thought the stinging was just the salt water getting
into the wounds, but I quickly realized it wasn't just the salt
water, it was little crayfish swimming up to pick at the
peeling skin around the wound. I also thought the water level
would remain stable, but after a while I realized it was slowly
rising from how it seemed to be creeping up the wall, and that's
about the time I just accepted that I was going to die.
I kept thinking about my family, and it brought me a strange
sense of peace knowing that they'd be there to carry on
without me. Sure, it had hurt some, my kids
would grow up without their father, but they'd no doubt get
a big payout from the company. And then on top of my life
insurance, they might just get a big enough check to keep them
comfy for the rest of their lives, I imagine.
And thinking those kinds of thoughts was all I could do to
comfort myself. And I remember just sitting
there, trying to conserve whatever oxygen I had left in
total silence, just waiting around to die.
Then suddenly, the silence was broken by the sudden sound of
metal on metal. It was like a hard clunk, and
although I couldn't see what was going on outside the boat, I
knew that there was a good chance someone was out there,
someone that might be able to hear me.
I didn't scream or yell, as that would have burned valuable
oxygen. Instead, I started to hammer my
fist against the bulkhead, hoping whoever was out there
would recognize that someone was alive inside the tub.
Minutes later, I saw a light through one of the portholes and
realized that there must have been divers swimming around
outside. I took a deep breath and then
dived back into the water. My goal was to find a porthole
through which I could see the divers, so I went room to room,
prying open doors, then heading back to the air pocket for
another gulp of oxygen. Then back I went, repeating the
process over and over, until finally I caught sight of the
divers outside. I remember pushing my hand up
against the safety glass, and one of the divers later said he
just thought it was another body at first.
But when I started trying to bang on the glass, they realized
I was alive. I wasn't taken straight to the
surface. You'd think that that might have
caused more emotional turmoil than it did, and after being
trapped in a wreck like that, most would want to return
straight to the surface. But you can't do that.
The sudden change in pressure might actually kill you, so I
spent a real long time at a diving bell sucking air from a
spare oxygen tank. Before I was allowed to
resurface. The divers told me I'd been down
there for almost 14 hours. I don't even think it felt like
three. I guess my sense of time was
disoriented, but resurfacing to the night sky instead of
daylight made it feel like I time traveled or something.
A bunch of medics checked my vitals to ensure my temperature
and blood pressure were OK, and then they advised that I go
visit a hospital. But all I wanted to do was get
home to my wife and kids. So although I wouldn't advise
anyone to ignore medical advice like that, I went straight home
and gave them all the biggest hugs of their lives.
I had some real bad dreams for a long time afterward.
Sometimes I'd feel like my bed was sinking and I'd wake up with
sweat soaked bed sheets, which I guess prolonged the process of
realizing it was just a nightmare.
Other times, I dreamt that water was rushing in via my bedroom
windows and that my wife was unconscious.
I'd pick her up, carry her to the door, but it wouldn't open
and the water would just keep rising and rising until I woke
up. Some friends suggested that we
just take a vacation someplace really landlocked, you know, and
that helped a whole lot. I stayed away from the pool for
a whole week and a half, though, until I finally forced myself to
face my fears. I guess the context of that
vacation helped knowing that I was safe.
And like I said at the start, I've always loved the water.
When I was 14 years old. My family and I went on a
boating trip out of Melbourne's Western Port Bay.
I remember being at the helm with my father, steering the
little boat over the waves. Then the next thing we knew, my
Big Brother was shouting that water was coming in.
It all happened so fast. Mom and Dad were shouting for us
to stay together. Then suddenly the boat tipped
over and we were in the water. We later found out that the
bottom of our boat had been almost completely rotten and its
owners had been extremely and willfully negligent in renting
it to us. We had no choice but to start
swimming since it was late in the evening.
No one had seen us go down, so it was up to us to rescue
ourselves. I was a reasonably good swimmer
and we all had life jackets on, but it was still around 2 miles
back to shore so land looked like it was a long, long way
away. Darkness.
Fell as we were. Swimming, but my dad started to
struggle and my Big Brother swam back to try and help him.
My mom and I stuck together and kept going, but we soon lost
sight of my father and brother. Seagulls cried out above me and
I kept imagining that they were warning me of an attack from
sharks that were no doubt swimming in the waters around
us. I could see land, but it didn't
seem to get any closer. Finally, after more than three
hours in that water, I felt the sandy bottom against my feet.
I'd reach the mud flats of what I believed was the mainland, but
my mom, dad, and brother were nowhere to be seen.
I was weak, cold, and exhausted. I dragged myself through the
mud, which at some points was almost up to my waist, and this
was even more terrifying than the swimming.
The mud kept sucking me down, and I was terrified that I'd
sink and be suffocated. My muscles ached, my lungs
burned, and I felt like I was about to pass out at points.
But at the same time, I knew the clock was ticking.
It was essentially down to me and me alone to get help for my
family. When I finally made it ashore, I
realized that I was on French Island, an island with an old
disused prison on it that has only about 50 residents.
I ran through the bushland, using up the last reserves of my
energy, feeling thorns scratching against my legs and
arms. I ran for a long time, stopping
every so often to catch my breath before continuing through
the Bush. Finally I found a house and
after banging on the door someone opened it.
I told them what had happened. I just remember crying and
crying as they tried to comfort me and how I begged them to help
find my family. They told me everything was
going to be OK and that they'd contacted the Victoria Coast
Guard. I appreciate that they were just
trying to console me, but I knew they were wrong.
The next morning, the bodies of my mom, dad and older brother
were recovered from the water off the coast of Fair Haven.
Words cannot express how devastated I was, and I was
filled with this overwhelming survivor's guilt, thinking that
I should be the one dead. For five long years I was a
wreck, and I think I might be dead from drink and drugs if it
wasn't for the birth of my first child.
For a long, long time, I avoided any kind of large body of water,
which included swimming pools, before my therapist suggested
that I undertake some exposure therapy.
This would involve brief trips to a local pool, but at first my
anxiety was so bad that even if my head was above the water, I
just couldn't breathe. I tried for four months.
But nothing worked until a local swim coach heard my story and
offered some help. Then over the next year or so,
the therapy started to chip away at my fear until finally I was
able to look at the sea without feeling like I was about to have
a panic attack. My proudest moments have been
taking part in a charity swim across the rip, which is an
infamously rough stretch of water.
We helped raise money for a domestic violence charity here
in Australia, which is a cause very close to my heart for
reasons that could well make for another true scary story.
It might have taken me 20 years, but I no longer let my fear
control me. I now understand that what
happened wasn't my fault, but the irony of needing water to
heal the very trauma that it created has never been lost on
me.