The Storm

It had been a terrible day for Cassandra. She had been a sailor and a captain for over twenty-five years and had never seen such a terrible storm. She was eight years old when they moved from Washington D.C. to Florida. After that, she had spent a lot of time at sea. Her interest in the sea and sea animals had started when their class teacher took them to a big aquarium to observe and learn about different sea animals. Back in then, sailing was also a popular hobby. Cassandra’s dad had bought a small sailboat so that he could teach his children how to sail.

Cassandra soon had her own small aquarium at home with a pet octopus and even a jellyfish at one time. She liked all kinds of sea animals including sharks, jellyfish, crabs, turtles, and especially dolphins. Cassandra had fallen in love with the sea and later studied marine biology at university. Now, on this fateful Thursday morning, Cassandra was to face a battle with the sea. She had left the harbour in the morning with her crew to carry out some research about local jellyfish. At about three o’clock, the rain had started and then came the storm. Cassandra and the crew had fought against enormous waves and very strong wind. She had been lucky that her crew was very experienced. One of the waves had almost made the boat flip over.

They survived the storm but they had lost almost all of their equipment. The coast guard had had to rescue one of the crews who had been swept overboard by an enormous wave. Although the experience was terrifying, Cassandra and her crew are now determined to set sail again soon with divers to try, and salvage their expensive scientific equipment from the bottom of the sea!