The Red Sea: Post-Mortem
THE RED SEA
Post-Mortem
The Sea Story
Five months after our trip, I received a startling message from Amelia: The Sea Story had capsized and sunk.
She had recommended the diving expedition to a friend of hers on account of how incredible it had all been. She had been thinking of joining him, but had decided not to because she was moving to a new place. A few hours earlier, that same friend had told her that the boat had sunk, that he had lost most of his belongings, and that four bodies had been recovered while many more were still missing. The news sent chills down my spine. We had been on that same boat a few months before. Selfishly, one of the first thoughts that came to mind was that it could have happened to us.
A few days after the tragedy, the scale of it became clearer. Eleven people were either confirmed dead or still missing, most of them members of the crew. Among them, according to the information we received, was Aladin. One survivor later claimed that the boat had sailed despite weather warnings, and that the vessel had seemed unstable from the very beginning. Other survivors described the boat rolling sharply before it capsized. I wasn’t there. I don’t know exactly what happened aboard the Sea Story, and I don’t want to pretend that I do.
All I know is that Aladin – along with the other crew members whose names I may never know – had been a genuinely good guy. Rest easy, my friend…
Another Tragedy
Seven months after our trip, I received another startling message from Amelia: Antida had died in a diving accident in the Maldives.
I could hardly believe it when I saw the news article online. It seemed like a curse. How the hell could this be? She was so young and full of promise. I remembered her telling me about her horse-riding competitions. I remembered the beers she had offered me. I remembered her sitting with us on deck, laughing, talking, living so vividly that it felt impossible to imagine her gone.
How the hell could this be? I see death in front of my face all the time while at work. I know death. Or at least, I thought I did. But this felt different. This wasn’t a patient. This wasn’t someone whose story I entered at the very end, already braced for the worst. These were people I had shared meals with, dives with, sunsets with. People who had existed, however briefly, in the same small floating world as me.
And then, within months, they were gone. Maybe that is what made it feel so cruel. Not just the death itself, but the reminder of how random it all is. How a boat you once slept on can sink. How a person you once laughed with can disappear. How the ocean, which had given us so much joy, could also take so much away. May they all rest in peace…