Day 1

This is my Day 1 story.

Everyone was tense and waiting, Mr Woody was doing the last minute rounds of gear checks and marking off the roll. “Right” Mr Woody yelled at us. Everybody stopped their chattering except for Jayme “I don’t think I can do this” she said to Micaela and I. “Breath” Micaela replied to Jayme.

“Let’s go” Mr Woody said “We are off to the Backpackers lodge at Kawhia Harbour”.

The next morning we departed to our seaplane for our return to Maitainui.... I glanced over at Jayme, her face looked puzzled “How are we all going to fit into that plane” she said I glanced to my left at Micaela she was really looking forward to this.

“Let’s board” said Mr Woody. We all started filing onto the plane. I could feel the butterflies in my stomach coming to life, I was really scared. Once we were all seated Mr Woody counted us off there were 30 of us. As Mr Woody sat down the pilot announced over the speaker that he was Samuel B from FIS. The whole plane erupted into nervous murmurs. “Isn’t he only twelve years old” said Micaela “Yep” replied Jayme. Just after Jayme’s reply the plane roared into life all three of us jumped, we all laughed uneasily.

The plane started moving in painfully slow circles making all of us 30 passengers even more tense, Finally after 5 minutes of slow circles we were off into the air, water spraying behind us and the whole class chattering nervously, The main topic of conversation was our camping groups, I had decided to go with my best friends: Jayme and Micaela, our game plan was to pack all of our 30 items (Ten items each Max. Number of items we were allowed to pack) into my backpack and leave the two other bags empty.

After a long conversation about our game plan we decided we would open the window and look at the views, We opened the window and screamed, the whole class turned too look at us "Open your windows" we all yelled in unison. Those who dared did others who didn't screamed anyway because they heard the thunder; we were heading into a big black cloud. "Calm down" Said Mr Woody trying to reassure us that everything was OK. But we knew nothing was OK. Mr Woody went flying back into his seat as lightning hit the plane, suddenly all the lights went out except for the small night lights in the plane and It went silent, I felt a strange tingling sensation I looked over to Jayme that was until I realized I was looking down on her, the whole class Had started floating weightlessly in the air, everyone except for Jayme who had her belt done up "Undo your belt" Micaela yelled to Jayme. Jayme undid her belt and started floating too "This is fun" she called but before she could enjoy the sensation anymore we all got slammed back into our seats. Suddenly we were out of the big black cloud and spiraling down towards the water, the speaker erupted into noise as Sam explained "he had never passed his pilot test", I was really scared now but that didn't last for long because the plane splashed into the water, I started hyperventilating we were all going to drown

“Look for the emergency hatch " screamed Mr Woody we all started searching but no one could find it after abut 10 minutes of frantic searching the plane started filling with water Jayme-Lee started throwing bags left right and centre "Found it" she yelled as she lifted the last bag and smashed the hatch with her elbow Micaela and I grabbed my bag and jumped through the hatch into the cold water fortunately I was wearing my t-shirt polar-fleece, long pants and Ice breaker so I didn't feel the cold.

I looked around I could see most of my class struggling through the water I looked over in the direction they were swimming towards the never visited island Matainui it looked about 100 meters away. I was already struggling with the backpack so I swam over to Micaela and Jayme who said that we should all have turns lugging the backpack so I handed it to Jayme she sunk beneath the water, she was to weak to carry the bag so all three all of us clipped our belts together and then used our rope to tie ourselves to the backpack, we started swimming to the shore stopping every so often to take a rest. Every second we got closer to the island and to being warm and dry this was the only anything that drove us to swim otherwise we would have drowned about thirty meters back.

We took the last few strokes and then started walking up to the shore I looked down and realized that Jayme had cut her leg on some glass I looked around at the beach. I was starting to have my suspicions about this place. I turned to Micaela “where’s the first aid kit “ she asked “ In my backpack” I replied reaching into my bag “Thanks” said Micaela as I passed it to her, suddenly Jayme-Lee let out a cry of agony the water had rushed up and gotten into her cut, Micaela and I picked her up and quickly cried her up the beach. Her cut looked quite bad. Micaela opened up the first aid kit and got out an antiseptic wipe and cleaned Jamye’s wound, I then wrapped a bandage really tight around her leg applying pressure to stop the bleeding.

We packed up our first aid kit and went a few meters down the beach so we could have some alone time.

After some struggling we set up a tent on the edge of the bush just on the sand and put some rocks and the pegs we then put down blankets some could have a warm dry rest. Micaela, Jayme and I then set out to find two stable trees we all set out south, after about 5 minutes we found two trees and hung up our wet clothing and got into some other stuff.

We then went back to our tent and had some lunch and water and had a conversation about the crash. All three of us agreed that this was not a normal crash and that there was something funny going on "Remember the black silent weightlessness" said Micaela "It reminds me of something" "almost like space" I replied. That set everyone thinking "well, I guess we should go get our clothing" said Jayme.

We all got up in search of the trees, when we found them we took our clothing down and went back to the tent to get some rest.