Blinded

Never turn your back on the ocean. I know this. So I didn’t. The wave rolled in and crashed over the lava rocks. It surged higher than the rest filling the secret pool I had been looking for this morning. I expected to get wet, but the wave was bigger than I expected. I got drenched. Small wonder I wasn’t knocked off my feet and into the pool, which was about six feet deep. I tasted the salt of the ocean on my lips and before I could focus my sight on my predicament I knew I had lost my glasses.

I couldn’t believe I had done such a stupid tourist thing. And I wasn’t positive my glasses were even at the bottom. A shadow float by. A fish I presumed. Nothing but a blurry shape. If I couldn’t see if was a fish, how would I find my glasses? My six hundred plus dollar glasses after insurance.

Two local men, who had been standing near the shore heard me yell to Dad I had lost my glasses. They strolled over and scanned the pool. “What color are they?”
“ They are clear, frameless.” How many times had I searched my apartment looking for the damn things, unable to see them sitting on the table unless my face was only a couple feet away. Now the nearly invisible specs lay on the bottom of some swimming hole among the spiny sea urchins. Or maybe they fell to the other side. I tried to remember how the wave hit me. Which way had I turned?

I needed an optical mask, snorkel and fins and a couple of hours to scour the bottom. If I was lucky I’d find them and maybe if I was even luckier they wouldn’t be damaged.

One guy volunteered to get his mask, but I later learned he trotted off to his massage appointment. Christopher a lanky fellow with long red hair and surfer trunks to match that barely clung to his hips took a long drag off his cigarette before offering to help. He seemed reluctant to get wet, but might have been more inclined not to want to chase his morning beer with sea water. I told the gathered men I’d be back after I got my mask and I trudged up the hill to Boss Frog.

Boss Frog was just up the street and since I had been snorkeling two days ago I knew the 3.5 optical correction would give me a clear enough vision that I could spot an octopus camouflaged in the sea bottom waterscape. Maybe I could run around with a dive mask on for the next week. Picture me driving a car…

Still dripping we, I stood in the door way of the surf store, reluctant to walk in. The young man behind the counter said, “We get that all the time?” and waved me in. What? People looking like drowned rats in street clothes?

“Do you want to rent them for the day or for the week?”

“I just need to find my glasses. Hopefully, just for fifteen minutes.”
“Twenty four hour minimum.” I could tell by his look he thought I was crazy and the chances of finding them were slim. Ka-ching! Minus glasses and minus 10 bucks.

I trudged back down the road toting my blue bag filled with snorkeling gear. It was a little after 9 am and I wanted to be buying papaya at the local farmer’s market. Not this. And if I don’t find them? I didn’t want to think of my options. I had an old pair of contacts that could keep me from being declared legally blind, but I couldn’t remember when I wore them last. Eye infections?

I concocted a plan. I could get those guys to go into the water and look…maybe offer a finder’s fee. Yes, that is worth it. $50. The more people searching, the better. It’s a lot cheaper than buying new glasses, going without glasses for a couple of weeks, or spending the next five hours in an exhaustive search than could prove fruitless, frustrating and make me evil!

Only Christopher was there. “I think I found them.” His manner was so matter of fact, you would have thought he found my socks.

“Serious?” I nearly jumped in excitement.

I followed him to the edge of the pool, watching my step and keeping an eye on the surf. I couldn’t recall any other waves breaking over the lava as high as the one that hit me. I hopelessly stared into the water.

“There.” He pointed to a blurry location on the floor about three feet from the wall. Hell, I couldn’t see an anchor if it had been sitting there. I sat down and dropped my feet into the water. It was just that two to three feet drop in altitude that made it possible for me to see a straight stick-like feature below the surface.

“You mean sort of down that hole-like thing?” not too sure is I was seeing anything but a stick.
“Yeah,” he nodded.

“It looks different than anything else down there.”

I prepared my mask and was about to spit in it when I heard Christopher say, “Well, it is only a cigarette butt.” One last drag, flung it into the open sea and he jumped into the pool, smoked-filled lungs and all.

A few seconds later my glasses sat on my nose. I never bothered to wipe to water off them.

Shortly after I returned the mask to Boss Frog and got a refund for not even using the gear, I went back to the pool with fifty bucks in hand. Instead of just finding just Christopher four other guys were sitting around the rock wall. I nodded to Christopher so I could discretely hand him the money, but it wasn’t any secret.

“So those are 600 dollar glasses?” the toothless Filipino asked. “Nice specs.”

I handed my hero the cash. “I’ll share the money with all the fellows,” Christopher said.

“Well, just don’t get too ripped before the day is over.”

They all laughed.

I went back my condo and suggested to Dad that the rest of the day should have less drama. We went shopping for a waste paper basket for the bathroom.