Death by drowning.

I am a big lover of the beach and being in water. Living in Utah would be significantly better if there was a beach nearby. However I think of drowning as possibly one of the worst deaths. Some might disagree here, but drowning to me is in the very top of terrible ways to die that I can think of.

It caught me when Gonzalo says:

Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an
acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, anything.
the wills above be done! But would I fain
die a dry death.

I found this picture that shows all the different deaths in England in one year. With so little deaths being drowning or 'accidental threats to breathing' as the picture puts it, why are we so concerned about drowning whenever we go to a beach or we see children in water? There are typically 3X the amount of deaths on the road or in transport accidents!

Still though, this opening to the play, with the threat of death near, adds an aspect of spectacle and fear. Inciting this early on, I would say that an audience would not really know what to expect for the rest of the play. Usually something so dramatic might be the climax of a play or film and the dramatic question is: Will they survive this storm?? But if this is only the first scene in The Tempest, then of course they will! No one dies in the first scene. It's an interesting element to add so early on to the play.