I made various mistakes in my life up to now, but there is one which I remember very vividly and even I shiver while I recall within my mind the whole story. I do not recall the exact date of the event, but I remember that it was a Saturday within the year of 1991, and at that time I was thirteen years old. At that age, Saturday meant going out, away from the school books and off for a new adventure. That day I had decided to phone my friends, to see what they are up to. Unfortunately each of them had something of their own to do. Therefore, I thought to go the Manoel Island shelters on my own. I found my bag pack, and in it I put a torchlight, my walkman, some canned ham, some cheese, a loaf of bread and a knife. I put on some rough clothes and safety boots on and without leaving any note of my whereabouts and headed off to Manoel Island by walk. After around a quarter of an hour I reached my destination, which was a hole in a chimney located in the high walls near Manoel Island` s fort. I fetched the torched from within my back pack and then crawled into the dark hole. After around 2 hours exploring the shelter I came to a spot which was outside of the shelter with steep, high walls on each side.
I thought to take advantage of the situation and have lunch. I found a flat platform within the confined area, put on my walkman` s headphones on my ears, and while I listened to its music I prepared and ate lunch. It was to go on with the exploring, therefore I began to put everything back in the back pack. While I was doing so I mistakenly hit my torchlight and it fell in a tight, deep gap between the platform and the wall. I tried to reach it, but it was so tight that I could not reach it. At that moment I panicked because without the torchlight my chances to find my way back in the darkness of the shelter are near zero. Additionally, I could not wait for any help as no one knew of my whereabouts. There were two options now, going back through the shelter and try to find out the way without any source of light or climbing the walls. The latter seemed too much frightful as I was afraid of heights so I opted for the first option.
So I took a deep breath and launched myself into darkness. As a direction I used a wall, which by touch of my hands I side walked against it, until my foot got locked within an iron loop and I fell. Panic striked me again, and I tried to calm myself by taking deep breaths. This option did not look as it would work so I set my mind to go back and go for the second option. When I came back out to the spot were I lost my torch light, I saw that it was getting already dark. I looked at the high walls which I had to climb and I thought to myself that these might be the last moments of my life, because if I would fall while climbing there is a big chance of breaking a limb and or death. With that in mind, I took a long breath and I began to climb up the wall.
The foot and hand holds which I used was the gap which some stones of the wall had. In some of them, there was some soil like material which when I gripped on it made me loose grip and nearly fall down on various occasions. After around twenty minutes which seemed like an eternity, I made it to the top. At that moment I felt like I have climbed from the jaws of death to the peak of mount everest. I was really happy and I jumped with happiness like I was a madman. While I headed home, I promised to myself that wherever I go, I would make my whereabouts known. Additionally, I made it a point that whenever I went to a shelter, I would take a spare torchlight, including spare batteries. This adventure was really frightful, all because of my negligence. I will end this story, by saying that you cannot learn unless some mistakes are made.