I remember much from that time. The sights, the sounds. But what I remember most is the taste. The air tasted of salt, like the water. The thick mist from the ocean filled the area with the flavor of salt. The water would rise up and splash me in the face, carrying the tang of seaweed and plankton mixing with the rust and damp wood taste of the raft. I also remember the stale taste of the small amount of fresh water we saved. It was lifeless. It was dead. It was brown. Just lay at the bottom of the bottle like an animal by the side of the road. It didn't dance and leap up to touch the sky like the waves of the ocean.

I hated to have to drink the brown water we brought with us. I didn't know why we were not to drink from the ocean. It was everywhere and it crackled with life. Filled with fish of all shapes and sizes. It didn't take us long to run out of fresh water. So we went thirsty. It rained on the eighth day and it was the most glorious thing any of us had seen. We greedily held our mouths open to catch as much as we could. Glorious.

We had set out early one morning. It was a surprise to me, but looking back my father must have been planning for months. He took us to the boat, really more of a raft, and helped me and my uncles get on board. There were strangers there I had never seen before. I nuzzled into a small hollow by the bow. The boat had two inner tubes lashed to it with fraying nylon rope, one on each side.

I was not scared, I clearly remember that. I was just confused. I didn't know why my father had taken me from my bed in the middle of the night. Or why he had a small bag filled with my and his clothes. I though for a moment we were going to see my abuelo and abuela in the city. Father had gone there a lot recently, mostly to ask for money. But then instead he took me to the shore.

It was not supposed to be a long trip. I've read now that it is only ninety miles to Florida. Northerly currents can take you to the mainland in as little as five to seven days. In this modern age such a trip should be routine, boring.

We brought only the smallest supply of food. Fresh vegetables from our small garden at the back of our home. Its meager size provided us only the barest rations. There simply was no room for more. No cans or extra weight. My father was forced to leave one of the bags he had brought lying on the beach. It was only clothes, they were replaceable. There were eight of us crammed into the small boat. An ancient aluminum rowboat with only one real oar and an old bleach container turned into a bailing bucket.

The journey started well. The white beaches of my home island vanished in the rising and falling azure crests. The sky was as blue as the water and just as large. It was almost impossible to make out where one ended and the other began. Azure on all sides. It was as if I was in the middle of a bright blue balloon that was rocking in a breeze.

One of my uncles, Javier Vachon, spent much of those days entertaining me with tales of other sailors and explorers. He brought to life the stories of Sinbad, Ponce de Leon and Jason with his Argonauts.

I spent many hours envisioning myself manning the helm of the Argo through the blue seas of the Mediterranean. Fighting Cyclopes and outwitting Circe. Or sailing about southern oceans outwitting the Roc and encountering Sultans.

My father was a firm man, he never told me such stories. Of warriors and magic. Although the tales he did tell seemed just as fantastic.

While Javier told of men as tall as a building with but a single eye or birds that were larger than a bus, my father spoke of a land where we could be free. Where we would not be afraid every time someone knocked loud on the door. Where we could say or do what we wanted.

Both stories fascinated me because they seemed so unbelievable.

Late evening on the second day the weather turned worse. Looking back I cannot remember when we knew the storm was coming, it just happened so gradually and without warning. And yet all the signs were there.

My father knew the seas. The appointed navigator of our boat, my father's partner Loren, had been a fisherman all his life. They should have known the signs. The dark smear spreading across the horizon like a bruise. The change in the wind and temperature. Even as a child I knew that it had grown colder. I remember wrapping a ratty blue tarp around my thin shoulders.

I suppose they did not wish to alarm the rest of us, they hoped silently that the storm would pass up by. We would miraculously escape harm through luck or divine intervention. But that only happens in my uncle Javier's stories. And this was real life.

The storm came like the flu. Shivers and chills followed abruptly by violent upheavals. Before we had really adjusted to the sharp breeze wailing from the open seas the waves began to rock and toss our small boat about. The waters went from peaceful to disturbingly violent in only a few scant minutes. The bobbing of the boat increases in ferocity.

My father immediately thrust me down to the bottom of the boat. My face was pressed hard against the aluminum and fiberglass that made up the hull. The bottom of the boat was filled with a few inches of water. All boats do that. I remember having my face half submerged in the sandy liquid, keeping one eye closed while the water rocked and flowed back and forth splashing against the sides of the craft.

I was scared. I had heard tales of what could happen during a storm. My mind was filled with the childish imaginings of possible outcomes mingled with tales of fantastic lands and being shipwrecked on deserted islands. But my mind was also filled with the grim reality of what could happen. The time when I was six when I saw the bloated and grey corpse wash up on the shore. The grim and cold reality of death. But even then, even while clinging to the bottom of a leaky boat being flung limply about during a storm I still believed that all would turn out all right.

The waves pounded the boat as if they had a grudge. We were trespassing on their territory without permission and had to pay the price. For a brief second I thought it might be Neptune, or Poseidon, I forget the name. The ancient god people personified as the sea. He was mad at us. Then my Christian upbringing reasserted itself and I prayed to the Blessed Virgin for salvation like my father and uncles.

The waves intensified. Finally a white-laced watery fist smashed hard into the side of the boat and sucked one of the strangers down into the water. I did not know him. Even now I do not know his name. I did not mourn his loss then or now. He died nameless and alone screaming for help in the heartless sea. His arms thrashing in the violent waves, his cries drowned out by the howling wind and crash of the water.

There were only seven of us left on the raft now. My father and my two uncles and me. Crammed in with three other strangers. I began to wonder who would be next.

The storm continued while I hung on for dear life. There was the sound of metal bending, a sharp high-pitched screech that rattled by teeth and bones. The small bench in the middle of the boat was being torn loose. One of my uncles clung to it, his eyes wide with terror and the realization of his mortality. There was the grinding sound as the two small screws that held the seat on either side of the hull stretched the thin aluminum sides of the ship. They violently jerked side-to-side loosening and stretching their holes.

It was not my favorite uncle Javier, but my loathed uncle Almandeto. He was large and meaty with fingers like cigars. Blunt and round and heavily tanned appendages that were forever yanking on my ears and cheeks. He was clumsy and ugly looking with overly large cheeks and a nose that was two sized too big for even his face. My papa always said he was a skilled factory worker and his hard fingers were the result of many hours working at machines and assembly lines. But I didn't care then, all I knew about him was that he pinched my cheeks.

I still felt bad when the bench tore away and he vanished under the water. He was not a swimmer. Never had been. Unlike the other forgotten man who sank below, Almandeto did not fight or cry out, he did not use his last breaths to call out to the divine for mercy. I respected him at the time for that. He knew his fate and he accepted it. It made an impression on my young mind.

But he did not enter the water alone. My father, the brave fool he was, made a lunge for his brother as he was flung from our raft. With one hand securely wrapped around the long hemp rope that was attached to the bail bucket he raised himself up and made a grab for my doomed uncle's hand. He missed. Almandeto ended up in the water. And my father slammed hard into the side of the raft where the bench had been before being tossed into the water himself.

When my father struck the side of the boat the sharp torn metal ripped through his cut-off jeans and struck deep into his flesh. All the way into the bone, the jagged aluminum scraping a deep gouge even into that. He was flipped bleeding profusely into the salt water where the waves hammered and pounded his body again and again against the side of the boat with his hand wrapped around his lifeline.

I cried out to him but Javier held me back, my cries drowned out by the wind. Just like the nameless man's.

We were like that for hours. Myself crying and Javier holding me pressed motionless against the base of the boat. All of us soaking wet, my tears mingling with the stinging salt water that saturated everything. Everything.

At last the storm broke and the winds died down. A peaceful calm spread across the sea leaving no trace that anything had occurred except the two dead men and the battered craft.

My father was quickly pulled back aboard. We were astonished that he was still alive, battered and unconscious but still breathing. The rope had swollen with water and left deep red welts all along his left arm where it had been wrapped, rubbing and grating for hours. His leg was white and unhealthy looking from the blood loss, the jagged pale gouge down his thigh. I held him tight.

It was then we realized three things. First it was night. Our third since we set out. Second was that the clouds made it almost impossible to navigate, we could not see the stars. The final realization was the rigging they had set up over our supplies had broken loose and we had lost all our food and most of our water.

The next few days dragged on. The clouds vanished a little before dawn and the post-storm sun appeared with a terrible fury. It seemed to be punishing us for being somewhere where were not supposed to be. I thought back to those myths I had learned and vaguely remembered one where the sun flew too close to the earth. I wondered if it was happening now.

We managed to adjust our course in what was hopefully the right direction although we had no idea how far off course the storm had blown us.

We spent two more days drifting along slowly, rowing as hard as we could with the current. It meandered around taking its own route to whatever destination it wanted. We were just hoping the destinations matched.

My skin, like everyone else's, grew angry and red from the unending abuse from the sun. I tried to shield myself with the tarp but I had to share it, especially with my father. He was injured and sickly from the experience. He developed a heavy fever. On the fourth day, the second after the storm, he began to hallucinate and tossed and turned while rambling angrily for hours. I was sure he was going to die.

I thought it was his leg. The cut was still an angry red and raw from the water. But I was wrong. Loren bandaged the leg as best as he could with some spare cloth, wrapping it tightly in lieu of stitches. It was all we could do.

What I didn't know, what we didn't know, at least not then, was that it was his arm. The rope had cut off the circulation for so long the flesh had become necrotic. It was killing him.

He grew worse on the fifth day. That was a bad day, it was also the one we ran out of water on. We thought he could not grow worse. Until the sixth day when he did. We were no closer to land. And we knew it. We were lost in the open ocean drifting aimlessly. We rowed when we could, we knew which was north, but any progress we made seemed to vanish overnight. My body grew so painful I could not move without wishing I could die. The sunburn on my face and arms grew so severe it began to blister.

Without water my father grew worse, as did the rest of us. We gave up even trying to move on the seventh day and just lay their awaiting death.

I was determined not to be like that nameless man, crying for salvation from an uncaring and hostile sea. I would go like Almandeto. I did not like him, not then, but I respected him. I would die like a Greek hero from thousands of years earlier. The river Styx would not be waiting for me, nor would Valhalla, but I would die the same.

We were all sure it could not get worse. Then Javier pointed out the fins slicing through the water towards us. I remembered my father's leg and how sharks can track even drops of blood for miles. We were surrounded in seconds, the gray triangles circling our small dented raft.

Shaking, Loren rose and lofted up one of the remaining paddles. The boat rocked back and forth gently from the motion. He was weak and exhausted and could barely lift himself, let alone the paddle. He was not going down without a fight. I was unsure if that was being the nameless man struggling against the inevitable or not.

I was ready for the flash of razor teeth or the swing of a paddle. I was ready for the sun or the sea or the shark to finish me off. I thought I was ready for anything. That nothing could surprise me now. But I was wrong.

He just arose from the water. He did not jump or kick, the water remained blue and calm. He just rose up. He had shoulder length blonde hair and a bright orange scale shirt that shone without a trace of rust. His pants were as green as seaweed as were his gloved hands. Sitting up in amazement I noticed how he was doing it, he was standing on the back of a small whale.

As if on cue the large mammal let off a burst of water from its air hole.

"Are you alright?" he asked first in English then in Spanish. He had the strangest accent. I had never head its like before, and yet it still sounded familiar.

"We are lost. Thirsty. Can you help us?" Javier said slowly. He and Loren were still nervously eyeing the gray fins. Their fear was gravely misplaced.

There was a bubbly laughing screech from the water as the 'sharks' rolled over or raised themselves up revealing themselves to be dolphins. Dolphins! Embarrassed, Loren sat down on the boat. He would later attribute it to a hallucination caused both heat exhaustion and dehydration.

"Your friend's hand is… gangrene," the blonde man said pointing at my father. "His arm will most likely need to be amputated."

"Only if he lives to make it to the hospital," Javier said firmly. It was then I noticed that the dolphins had slid themselves tightly against the hull of the ship. The whale pressed its nose against the stern and began to swim. I fell down from the sudden motion.

The dolphins squeaked again and with a minor realization I looked at the man again. His accent sounded like dolphin cries. "Poseidon?" I asked uncertainly. He didn't look Greek.

He smiled and shook his head. I remember every word as if were yesterday. "No. Orin. Or if you must, Aquaman."

Loren looked up at the name. "The American 'super-hero'? You are taking us to your home?" he asked hopefully.

The man smiled. His young face dimpled slightly. "I am not American. I'm Atlantean. And I only just learned I'm that."

Loren nodded. "But you're taking us to America. That was where we were going."

Aquaman and the whale paused. "Are you Americans?"

Javier and the rest shook their heads. Aquaman nodded. "I didn't think so. I'm taking you home." The whale and dolphins stated swimming again. We were moving surprisingly fast.

"You cannot!" Javier cried. "We have suffered so much to escape, to make it to freedom! Two of us have died. Do not let their deaths be in vain!"

The paler man's smile vanished and he frowned. It didn't suit him. "You don't realize what you are asking me to do."

"We are asking you to take us away from out old lives."

"You are asking me to deliver citizens to a foreign country, one that is not on good terms with yours."

"So?" Loren asked. "Their embargo is criminal. It is merely starving the poor and hurting the sick. Ruining the economy does not hurt those in power, they get their taxes no matter what."

The blonde man nodded. "The situation is more difficult than that. They cannot end the embargo because suggesting so would cost them votes; votes that would lose a riding, then a state and then an election."

"Our people suffer so that some rich person can get richer. Is that fair? Is that what you will deliver us back to?"

"Yes," Aquaman said. "I'm here not just as a life saver, but also as a King. All my actions reflect on my people. I cannot show favorites to any particular nation."

"Is all that fair?"

"No," he said sadly. I remember the look of impotence on his face. All his power and he felt helpless to aid six injured people on a leaky raft. "It is not fair. But that is the way the surface world works. And there is nothing I can do to change it."

Javier snarled. I have not seen him so angry before or since. "We'd be better off had we died where you found us." I'm sure if he had any spittle left he would have spat on our savior.

I sat at my usual place at the bow of the ship. We reached the shore in only a few hours. The trip had been made in silence.

The boat ground against the sands and my uncles quickly loaded my father off. They recognized the beach; they still had time to make it to a hospital.

He stood there on the beach and watched us leave. As we made our way up the beach, he called out to us. "Life is always better than death. With life there is hope. Keep hoping for a better world. It may seem like you are struggling against the impossible, merely delaying the inevitable, but as long as you are alive there will always be hope."

I stopped and looked back on the beach but he was gone. I turned and ran up to catch up to my uncle and father.

As I look back to those torturous days I realize how important they were. How that man saved my life in more ways than one. And now years later I can finish the journey my father and his brothers started so many years back. Today I take my son with me to the beach and together put our boat into the water and head North on the current.

I hope this time is better.

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The End...

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