How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Below me were fathoms of darkness and strange, goggle-eyed fish. Above me were the stars and the expanding universe. How was I supposed to go to sleep? (8.28)
Ben suffers from insomnia throughout the trip. He often seems overwhelmed by his surroundings. And we can't blame him one single bit.
Quote #2
[We] walked closer to the wrecked boat. It was a sad sight. The port side of the hull had been crushed against a coral head. (11.9-11.10)
The wrecked ship foreshadows the shipwreck of the Chrysalis later in the novel. Dum dum dummm.
Quote #3
Dylan and Gerry stood on Chrysalis, looking into the water. I followed their gaze. Sharks. Not very big, but sharks. Three of them. (15.21)
Yep. Mother Nature is definitely trying to kill the Byron boys.
Quote #4
We were in the trough of a wave. I was staring into a wall of water. I looked up for the top of the waves. […] Forty feet? But I was afraid of exaggerating. Thirty feet at least. (26.22-26.23)
…and this is exactly why we'll be staying in the shallow end of the swimming pool for the rest of our lives. Don't mess with the open ocean, guys.
Quote #5
All my senses stretched to read the ocean before us. Where were the coral heads? The rocks? The shoals? My ears strained for the sound of breakers on a beach. (28.24)
There are times when Ben feels almost at one with nature. He's very in tune with his surroundings…maybe because his surroundings are as angry as he is.
Quote #6
The whole mast crashed town toward the cockpit, then swung to port and splashed into the ocean, dragging the shrouds across the cockpit and pulling the hull slightly sideways with it. Then the boat was still. (28.27-28.28)
Looks like we finally have a winner in the battle of the Terrible Nightmare Storm vs. The Chrysalis. (Um, it ain't the Chrysalis.)
Quote #7
All we knew was that the cabin was slowly filling with water. Steadily the water's weight and the dragging mast would pull Chrysalis toward the chasm under her stern. Someday she would slide backwards and sink completely and irrevocably to the bottom of the sea. (30.15)
Good thing the boys realized they needed to leave the boat. After a few weeks, the sea swallowed her up entirely.
Quote #8
When we reached the top of the island, we felt the wind hit us and push against us, as if it were trying to shove us back down the hill we had just climbed. (32.93)
This is another example of nature refusing to cooperate with the Byron boys. That said, they eventually make it to the top.
Quote #9
We were three little pieces of humanity, the only people on earth, standing on the very top of the island, erect, on two feet, with hands at our sides. In a photograph or a painting, we wouldn't show up. There was so little of us and so much of everything else. (32.105)
On the island, Ben and his brothers are overwhelmed by the landscape, which is huge. It makes them feel pretty puny in the grand scheme of things.
Quote #10
Thirty feet away and cruising slowly closer was a giant hammerhead shark. Gray, long, and relentless, he swung his flat, evil face gently from side to side as he pinpointed me in the water where I was floating in the center of a circle of chum and holding a large, bleeding fish. (35.11)
That shark may be "evil," but maybe Ben's decision to stand in the ocean near a bunch of blood and guts wasn't exactly his smartest moment.