The Winds of Fortune

My best friend Cathy and I don’t go looking for trouble, really we don’t. Yet our youth was filled with close calls. Ann Landers once said, “The trouble with trouble is it usually starts out as fun,” and I wonder what advice she’d have given us that time when we ran out of gas twice in one night, first in my car, then in Cathy’s, leading to a long trek along a dark road in search of a pay phone.

  Surely, the advice columnist would have counseled us not to get on the boat in Key West with a Jamaican drug smuggler. But he did have the best weed, Ann.

  And I imagine she would have told us not to enter the New Orleans police station carrying half-full foot-long hurricane go-cups as we slurred our report about Cathy’s “stolen” wallet (likely left in on a bar stool somewhere in the French Quarter.)

  Yet perhaps the only time our lives we were truly in danger was when, like Nemo’s dad, we had that unexpected “swim with the jellies.”

My husband, Chris, and I were visiting my bestie and her hubby in Wilmington, N.C. One morning, when the boys went golfing, Cathy and I headed over the bridge to Wrightsville Beach. “We’ll be down on Shell Island,” Cathy told Chris, who planned to pick us up after dropping her husband off at work following their golf round. “You’ll be able to find us, there’s never anybody there,” she stated with chilling accuracy.

  The deserted tip of Wrightsville's Shell Island was dotted with seaweed and scallop shells, as we relaxed on our towels and gazed across water at a small spit of land jutting into the ocean. This was the famed Figure 8 Island, Cathy said, where only the fortunate, wealthy property owners had access to the exclusive, pristine beach. We resolved to change that.

“I’ve always wanted to go there,” Cathy mused. “Don’t you think we could … make it?” she asked, gesturing at the channel. I squinted across the water at the island. It didn’t look that far. I had a respectable collection of orange participant ribbons from Weswyn swim meets back when I was in Junior High. Never one to back away from a challenge I said, “Totally! Let’s go for it!”

Our plan was to swim halfway to the island and rest at the sandbar where a few gulls were sunning themselves surrounded by the aquamarine shimmer. There, we would decide whether continue on to Figure 8 or head back to our towels. Easy-peasy.

We struck out, luxuriating in the gloriously cool water, laughing in the sunshine, splashing in the occasional wave traveling through the inlet. But it soon became apparent where the concept of optical illusions and mirages comes from. The sandbar was much further away than it appeared, and it was much harder to discern while immersed in the gently rolling waves than it was while standing at the water’s edge. Still, we knew it was there, we’d seen the birds resting on it, so we breast-stroked onward. 

  Neither of us were willing to admit that the endeavor had become increasingly less fun, as we reached the sandbar. But there was a problem. It was there all right, but the tide had come in and the birds were gone. It was now under water. At 5’8”, I am considered taller than the average American woman, but that statistic was of no help in this situation. Cathy is shorter than me. The clear water revealed sand I could barely touch with my toes.

We looked at each other in desperation. All pretense of graceful, recognizable swim strokes was abandoned, and we doggy-paddled while considering our options. Figure 8 Island, with those wanna-be Cape Cod McMansion houses and all the fancy docks with fancy life-saving boats tied to them - with names like Fin and Tonic and The Codfather - was not the place of our fantasies. There was no sign of human life on that little island.

Yet it was clearly closer than where we’d just come from, maybe two Olympic pool lengths away? We definitely didn’t trust our judgement of distance. We turned onto our backs and tried kicking for a time, until we realized we were floating parallel to the shore. Tired but not yet dangerously fatigued, we made our way toward that damned exclusive, snobby island agreeing that when we got there, we’d figure something out. Knock on an ornate door. Ask to use somebody’s phone, and maybe get a glass of water? Perhaps Andy Griffith would answer and invite us in to sit a spell.

  Just then Cathy started treading water, panic in her voice as she pointed, "Oh shit!" Surrounding us were thousands of quarter-sized jellyfish, a swarm of stingy little suckers moving rapidly from left to right. Before we could fully comprehend this new obstacle, we noticed something much more disturbing: the island up ahead also seemed to be moving at a steady glide, but in this case, right to left. Toward the left was the island, rapidly on the move. To the right and now, increasing directly in front of us, the open ocean.

“I’d like to be a jelly fish…they ride the winds of fortune, life without a brain.” -Jimmy Buffett

We were at the edge of a fast-moving current and close to the edge of panic. With a Thelma-and-Louise look of unspoken solidarity, we plunged through the current, daring the jellies to do their worst as we swam diagonally in a last burst of adrenaline toward that accursed island. I felt them bumping against my arms and legs, sliding across my back, bouncing off my belly, but somehow neither of us got stung. We arrived exhausted but feeling fortunate as we laid prostrate on the sand in worship of the sea sirens or mermaids or people-loving dolphins that had obviously sent vibrations through the depths of the ocean to save us.

Eventually, we got up, and quickly realized that not only were the homes gated and not as close to the water as they appeared from afar, but they also had a decidedly not-yet-open-for-the-summer-season boarded up look. And that is when I noticed that my husband was standing on the opposite shore, waving broadly. My knight in shining armor! Sure, he was only half an inch high, but still! Rescue was forthcoming.

  “DRIVE AROUND!” We screamed, knowing he couldn’t hear us as we made big exaggerated steering wheel motions. He waved back. Was he blowing kisses?

“COME PICK US UP!” I screamed. It was then that Cathy remembered that you can only get to Figure 8 Island by boat. That is what makes it an exclusive hideaway for movie stars and politicians. Chris proceeded to turn around, drop his pants, and moon us. No help at all.

  We had no choice. We had to go back the way we came. We were rested, but oh so thirsty. The jellyfish bloom seemed to have moved out to sea, and we walked a little way down the beach to set off on our return journey from a spot where the current wasn’t as strong, knowing that a cooler with Corona Lights and a car was on the other side.

It was easier this time, with the surf gently propelling us toward the beach. Jimmy Buffett sang, “I’d like to be a jelly fish…they ride the winds of fortune, life without a brain.” I’m afraid we proved to be more like those jelly fish we evaded than we’d like to admit, as we came dangerously close to drowning with no one around to save us.

  I got to shore first as my husband waded out to greet me with an embrace worthy of Ursula Andres emerging from the ocean in Dr. No. We were still kissing when I noticed Cathy struggling in the water a few yards back.

“Put your feet down!” I called out. “Oh,” she replied, as her knees hit sand.

A cold Corona never tasted so good.

As shared at Story Salon on June 10, 2026 when the theme was "Where Did This Go Wrong"

(with gratitude to Cathy Larsson for the inspiration and first draft)