Easter's Extra Challenge

No, it ain't 'bout hunting fer colorful Easter eggs or chasing after cute bunnies. Fantastically special, it wuz a nature adventure I'm never gon forget.

Starting off...

Mah family and I went to tha beach fer a swim. Little did we know tha water wuz shallow. We even hurried up fer it wuz already past five in tha afternoon, having assumed the tide wuz getting high. We wuz wrong. Sometimes the tide don't work that way. Perhaps high tide wuz too lazy to get back to work on an Easter Sunday.

Therefore mah sibs and I excitedly treaded on the salty water in search fer at least a waist-deep part since we still feared high tide could be coming over without prior notice. At about fifty meters away from tha dry sand we reached an area covered with yellowish seaweeds--tons of 'em. Automatically mah feet came to a screeching halt 'coz mah cerebral tentacles (brain is too optimistic a word) had just sent a message of dread. My copious imagination began working, flashing before me some gore visions. What if there wuz something hiding beneath those sea grasses? Something hard to identify and has got a violent defense mechanism? Right there I mentally wished there wuz a sea goat to feed on all those weeds.

Somehow it gave me a dash of courage--yet still a dash, and I needed a gazillion tons of it. Moreover, mah sistah wuz, like, three meters away from me already, and I found being left alone behind even more terrifying than dealing with immobile sea grasses. So I moved on, catching up on tha kids, ignoring tha itchy grasses that felt like grasping my feet as I landed on 'em.

Then mah sistah, who wuz acting more of a tour guide, yelled back, "Look out fer tha urchins."

Tha what?!

Here's how a sea urchin looks like. (Third photo above)

I simply have no idea how that hand can hold that prickly creature. A sting could be lethal, and I ain't that stupid to land mah feet on it. Luckily we got our flip-flops on.

So carefully I walked forwards, checkin' out tha path I had to take. Mah sistah educated me that tha urchins stay on corals or beside rocks. Technically they avoid getting stuck to the messy grasses. Ergo, I had no choice but to trek on the grasses. I wuz beginning to find comfort in them already.

By the way, I forgot to tell there wuz sea slugs beneath tha grasses that could be mistaken as a piece of black tube. They wuz easy to find, though.

Fer tha first time I tried talking 'em (mah sibs, not the slugs) to retreating back to tha shore. Mah plead fell on deaf ears.

Then mah sistah cried out again: "Hey! Here's a jellyfish. And another one. And another."

Mah mind groaned. If only I could get back to tha shore this instant, but I couldn't. Wuz already 150 meters away we could barely recognize our mother from a beachgoer.

"Look at this one." Mah sistah held a live, mushroom-like jellyfish--upside down on her cupped hand.

"Ain't yah supposed to get itchy right now?"

"I ain't touching no tentacle." Then she threw the stuff away gently.

We reached a part where there wuz a lot of scattered sea urchins as though booby traps on tha sand. Urchins on mah left and right, grasses and rocks before me, and tha water level wuz already knee-deep (take note that I am a tall person and has got really long legs).

Okay. This is deteriorating fast. And I think it's 6PM. Ain't we supposed to be goin' back might tha tide rise surprisingly?

But I wuz left behind. Alone. Maybe not alone 'coz i got company--that of jellyfishes and urchins and slugs.

"Wait up!"

Tryna hurry I slipped as I hopped past a rock which I belatedly gripped on to and cut the fleshy part of mah middle finger. Tha wound kept on bleeding, and it didn't stop no matter how much I tried sucking tha bright red liquid off it.

"Blood, anyone?" I had tha vaguest idea how tha hell I could still quip like that.

I waded tha wound on the salty water, thinking it might help stop tha bleeding and heal it fast. Then I caught up with tha others, not realizing I just shed one part of blood to a million parts of water. If there were any sharks within tha area, would I have been more scared with it than with tha spiny urchins and jellyfishes?

So mah tour-guide-sistah finally took a squat on a certain part of tha hip-deep water. Mah other sistah wuz busy searching fer and collecting bright colored starfishes (she happily went home with two blue and a pink). Our cousin wuz also beginning to fret, sharing mah sentiments.

At that point, I commanded in a firm voice, "Time to retreat."

On our way back we tried taking other paths so as to avoid what we had just gone through. Seemed it was gon be a longer expedition as we found more urchins and jellyfishes coming our way.

It was when I learned to touch a jellyfish. Since you can't shoo 'em away you gotta pick 'em up and gently throw them away. With your cupped hand catch the soft stuff by its head, not by its tentacles. It's supposed to be upside down on your cupped hand when you raise it from tha water.

I found catching jellyfishes fun so I lifted about five of 'em. But the path we took had lots of sea jell-os charging our way, and we also had to look out fer those urchins that wuz greatly camouflaged among tha rocks. Talk about multi-tasking.

It was almost dark and some minutes before 7PM when we got back to shore safely. However, I wuzn't satisfied fer I didn't get to take a dip.

Still not giving up hope I called out to mah sistah and we walked to the shallow part of the water. We sat until the sun hid behind the mountain on tha horizon. Then I saw the log which I had also seen before I had taken that SURVIVOR-like challenge. Me and tha gang found happiness and satisfaction as we lay down on tha shallow water, all of us horizontally piled, our heads making pillow outta tha log. It lasted fer five minutes, I guess. Sheer bliss!

We survived. Most importantly, I survived. Tha next time I wanna take a dip, I'll make sure it's in a tiled pool.