Little Cumberland Mystery
Melissa Noonan // March 1, 2013
This is the peculiar story of how I lost Sam’s fishing rod.
When I was twenty, I fell hard for an American named Sam. It was young love at its finest. Sam was a biologist and spent his summers researching Loggerhead Turtles on Little Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia. In the summer of 2006, I decided to visit him.
The island is separated from its larger counterpart, Cumberland Island, by a narrow, winding salt-water pass called Christmas Creek. This is where Sam and I spent our mornings, fishing off the pier, catching our lunch. The creek ran from the ocean and into the marshlands on the island. Some mornings we would spot great blue herons, alligators, or dolphins migrating up the creek, looking for their own snack.
Life was simple on Little Cumberland; my sense of self-sufficiency heightened during my stay. There are only a handful of permanent residents on the island, while the majority of land is protected by various conservation organizations.
One morning, we lathered ourselves in sunscreen, grabbed the fishing rod and headed down to the pier. Sam baited my hook with some tiny arthropod resembling a crab. As I cast off, a slight breeze carried my line down the murky waterway. Together we looked out over the marsh, quietly commenting on how uncomplicated life was in this lush part of the world.
After a few unsuccessful casts, Sam got up to find us some fresh bait. I stayed on the wharf with songbirds to keep me company. With each minute that passed, the sun rose higher in the sky and I felt the air thicken. Beads of sweat began to form on the back of my neck.
I started daydreaming about living on the quaint little island forever; how easy it would be to accidently miss my flight. In the next moment, I realized that the birds had stopped singing, an eerie calm settled over the thick canopy behind me, and… BANG! The momentum from the fishing rod launched me forward from my cross-legged position and onto my stomach. There was something on the other end of that line, and it was big.
I desperately grasped the handle, but my opponent was ready to fight. I considered trying to get back up, but realized I’d probably have a hard time staying upright. Slowly, it began to pull me across the dock. In that moment I let go of my pride and yelled as loudly as I could, “Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!”
No response.
I tried digging the tips of my flip-flops into the spaces between the wooden boards on the pier, but each time I thought I’d succeeded, they slipped out again. As I reached the edge of the dock and looked down into the watery unknown, it became clear that I wasn’t going to win the battle. I let go of the rod.
Rolling away from the edge, I laid flat on my back, panting. Finally, Sam came running up to me.
“What happened? Where’s the rod?” he asked.
To this day, I don’t have answers to those questions. I often wonder what was on the other end of my line. An alligator? A shark? Or maybe a really determined turtle? I have no idea. It’s one of the many things in life that will remain a mystery to me. But what’s life without a little mystery?
