As the engine shutters, I become more and more aware of what I am gonna end up doing.  I start to search for any place to land rather than the deep blue ocean.  I see an island coming up, it looks small but just big enough for me to land; however, there is no clearing in the tropical trees.  The only place that I might be able to land would be the beach, but the beach is so small that I would have to use a lot of my skills to land it there, factoring in that the plane won’t as much as slow down but slide to a stop which greatly increases the stopping distance.  Knowing that I left the airport with max fuel and half the baggage areas full, I know that won’t be enough since I have only burned eleven gallons of fuel.  “N5678W, Anything on getting your engine to start?”

“Negative, I found an island, gonna ditch, about 56 miles south from the airport N5678W” I say.

“Sending rescue teams now” is the final word I hear from the tower.  The engine shuttering gets even worse and then about five miles from the airport, the worse happens, my engine cuts out.  I end up starting my approach early.  Aim for 65, hold the flaps up, watch the altitude.  The plane instruments are all going crazy, the horns are going off.  

I get about 100 feet up, I put a notch of flaps in, push the nose down to keep my 65 knots, 75 feet off the water, another notch of flaps, and then 50 feet from the water the plane wants to go up, I refuse and trim the nose downwards, forcing the plane to go down.  The plane slowly reacts and as I get closer to the island I know this is gonna be a rough landing.  The plane gets close to the water and then the wheels touch, the right gear breaks off, the left one catches and slams the nose of the plane down and left.

I wake up to the sound of waves rolling over on a beach, the plane is resting on a sand bar just short of the island, could have sworn this sand bar wasn’t here before.  Water is slowly sloshing my feet, warm tropical water, it feels nice.  As I sit and think about what to do next, something starts to blind me.

I start to grab what I think would help me and go to the bottle, “I helped you, now you help me” I look around confused.  Looking for someone, as my feet burn I start to slowly walk.  “Over here, in the bottle” as I walk to the bottle I realize where I ended up.  But just at that moment a search plane.  I use my glasses in an attempt to shine the light on the plane.  Sure enough, it works.

I sit and wait as the plane circles around slowly and drops water and food to me while a ship is coming, I see it off in the distance slowly getting closer.  I just sit back and relax and think, now I am on my own mini vacation.  I enjoy the last 45 minutes of me being on the island.