The drowning tourists
A tourist is taken by a tour guide on a motorboat out into the sparkling, blue, open sea. The tour guide has lived on these shores all his life and knows them well. The waves are rocking the boat, but no matter what, it does not capsize due to the tour guide’s navigation skills.
A scuba diver swims up to them and tells the tourist to jump into the water. He says that it is clean, warm, and so crystal clear and transparent, that many interesting things can be seen on the seabed.
The tour guide warns the tourist not to do that, as the waves are too strong, and he cannot pull him back into the boat if he falls into the water.
For some inexplicable reason however, the tourist chooses to jump off the boat into the water anyway, thinking himself capable enough to swim back to the shore, just like the scuba diver said he himself did.
However, as soon as he lands in the water, the waves separate him from the tour guide, the scuba diver goes back under, and he begins to drown.
The tourist cries for help, when suddenly the tour guide throws him a rope which he tied around his waist. He then tells the tourist to hang onto other end while he steers the motorboat back to the shore.
The tourist holds fast onto the rope, but he gets tossed by the waves and water splashes in his face. He gets tired and discouraged. He sees no glimpse of the shore and ends up letting go of the rope, quickly finding himself drowning again.
Once more he cries for help. The tour guide hears him and steers around to throw him the rope once more. This time, the tourist does not let go.
The tour guide finds other drowning ones along the way and also throws them a rope, though a different one. Each drowning tourist is holding onto his or her own rope. However, all ropes are tied around the tour guide’s waist, cutting into his skin and leaving him wounded and bleeding.
The tourist yells at those around him to also hold tightly onto their ropes. Some do, some hold onto for a little while, some refuse to grab it.
Once they reach the shore and the tourists are saved.
The first tourist inquires why some of them were not saved. The tour guide replies that no matter how much he tried to convince them to grab onto the rope while he steered his motorboat around them, they would not accept his help; some for fear that the tour guide would ask them to let go of the pearls that they had found in the water and were desperately trying to hold onto with their hands; some because they thought themselves capable of swimming to shore on their own; some because they knew the tour guide by name but did not trust him due to false reports they had heard about him; some because they let go when sharks pursued them; some because the scuba diver was distracting them by pointing at the colorful reefs on the seabed (and some of them even let the scuba diver pull them underwater); some because they worried that they would not have the strength to hold onto the rope instead of keeping their eyes on the tour guide, as he told them to do; and finally, some even thought that their ropes were too weak and would snap.