And I knew fear.

I was sober now, and I didn't want to die.

I discovered scores of reasons for living.

And the more reasons I discovered, the more liable it seemed that I was going to drown anyway.
Daylight, after I had been four hours in the water, found me in a parlous condition in the tide-rips off Mare Island light, where the swift ebbs from Vallejo Straits and Carquinez Straits were fighting with each other, and where, at that particular moment, they were fighting the flood tide setting up against them from San Pablo Bay.

A stiff breeze had sprung up, and the crisp little waves were persistently lapping into my mouth, and I was beginning to swallow salt water.