Authors: Bear Grylls
However, the judgement call still rested firmly in the lap of Captain Pennefather, now on his mobile, on his boat in the hot Solent.
Willie recalls:
Chloë and Andy had been in contact with the Icelandic coastguard, requesting information on any search-and-rescue vessels available in the area, both sea and air. By
mid-afternoon, the coastguard said they would send out a rescue team, but hinted where the financial costs would fall. It would be on us. Decision time, they suggested, was by 1900 hrs. This
would give them time to reach the boat’s last known position and return by nightfall.
I felt they were being too hasty though. The seven o’clock deadline was based on sending the team in a helicopter, but I felt it would be equally effective, and cheaper, to send a
fixed-wing aircraft. On top of this, they would be able to cover a much greater search area in less time.
We were continually assessing the balance of probabilities throughout the day, and were greatly helped by the staff at the Fleet Weather Centre, who supplied up-to-date forecasts of the wind
speed and direction, the wave heights and the currents, all of which enabled us to make a full analysis.
In the end, taking everything into account, we agreed to hold off until just before seven thirty in the evening. If there was still no news, we would send out a fixed-wing aircraft.
For this we would have to bear the financial costs.
When this news reached Mick’s parents on their mobile, they were shopping in Tesco’s. They were told the cost, and Mick’s mother, Sally, replied plainly: ‘Whatever it
takes; we’ll remortgage the house. This is our son’s life.’
Chloë and Andy Billing remained together at the barge, supporting each other throughout the day.
Chloë recalls:
It was a really surreal time for us. We were sitting in the home of this crazy adventurer surrounded by his family photographs, all these images of smiling happy times, and
all I could imagine was Bear and the crew in real trouble on those Arctic seas. We had to do everything possible to bring them home safely. But, in reality, we could do so little.
Shara recalls:
By half past six in the evening, I was in a terrible state. A friend rang and asked how everything was going, and I replied: ‘It’s not looking that great,
actually.’ I was panicking. I had these images of Bear’s body floating around in the ocean, bobbing away, face down, and I began wondering how Jesse and I were going to cope without
him. My imagination was racing out of control.
Then I spoke to my sister and almost convinced myself that Bear would never be coming back. I was in shock really.
I had to do something, so I phoned Willie and said he had to send out the rescue plane immediately. I said I knew that he and Chloë had Bear’s best interests at heart, but they were
not attached to him like I was. I was being a bit bossy, but we needed to know what had happened. I just felt that a delay could be fatal.
Out on the ocean it was early evening, and Andy and I were staring hard at the plotter. It clearly said we were just thirty-six nautical miles from Iceland. Together, we raised our eyes and
stared straight ahead into a grey gloom of indistinguishable sea, spray and cloud, and we saw nothing.
‘This is strange,’ Andy said. ‘We were able to see Greenland from sixty miles away. Where is this place?’
Andy rechecked the screen, then looked ahead once more.
‘Is there any way the instruments could be wrong?’ I asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ he replied.
‘This is so odd.’
Maybe the reading was wrong. Maybe something had gone wrong when we lost power. Maybe we had to recalibrate the GPS plotter after a power loss. My head was racing. I was exhausted and emotional,
and I just wanted this struggle to have been worthwhile. I didn’t want to have gone through all this and then, at the end, find we were in the wrong part of this vast ocean, because of an
electronics error. I wasn’t sure we could cope with another crisis.
Where was Iceland?
It was a grey, overcast evening, and it was drizzling persistently, but it wasn’t foggy and the visibility wasn’t too bad. It was just murky. We really should be able to see
something as big as Iceland. We all stared at the plotter, and held our breath as the miles ticked away. It was strangely surreal.
We carried on through the rain, the
Arnold and Son Explorer
bounding forward now through the decreasing swell. We were all up, gazing ahead, straining our eyes, searching for the first
sight of land.
Charlie asked, ‘What does the plotter say now?’
‘Twelve miles,’ Andy replied.
We still saw nothing. We were all beginning to believe we had missed Iceland.
Nige was back in the sardine tin and he wasn’t looking good. I glanced round at him. He just looked cold and wet and gaunt.
‘We’re pretty bloody close now, Nige,’ I leaned over and told him. He smiled and pulled the sodden tarpaulin up to his waist, as if it was a duvet, not a soaking wet bit of
thin material. He curled in tight, not really dozing, just existing. I moved across and pulled the tarpaulin higher – not that it made much difference.
But where was Iceland?
Slowly something appeared, dark and defined on the horizon. Nobody said anything. We weren’t sure. A minute or so passed. This something looked vast and bleak. It was land. It was Iceland,
and the lee of the Reykjavik Peninsula.
I suddenly felt an incredible surge of elation. We had all been through so much, and we had survived.
Together.
I grabbed Andy’s shoulders and hugged him. Through these last few day, when all of us had really started to feel the effects of no sleep, he had emerged as a quiet, brave, true
professional. I knew it had been worth keeping Andy’s strength for the last quarter of this ordeal. We had needed him.
Andy recalls:
It had been a very long, hard crossing. To be honest, my real worry was the effect that the constant slamming of the waves would have on the material state of the boat. Any
mechanical failure in these conditions would have been very serious, if not fatal.
We were very small against the vastness of the ocean all around us. It is very humbling; but the strong sense of teamwork gave me strength when I needed it. We were looking out for each other
and focused on exactly the same goal – saving our arses!
It’s hard to describe the feeling of relief when Iceland came into view but it meant that for the first time in days, I could stop listening to the tone of the engine and transmission
with a critical ear. Constantly listening and desperately trying to detect any sign of problems had been both draining and at times very worrying.
It was my job to keep the engine going and, with a bit of luck, the bottom line was that Iceland was now just ahead.
Time was moving on back in the UK, and Captain Pennefather was on tenterhooks.
Willie recalls:
Soon after seven o’clock, I decided to call the coastguard in Iceland myself. I wanted to ask him if he was able to see a small yellow boat at all from their observation
point. I thought he would be able to see fifteen miles out to sea.
He replied he couldn’t see much. He said there was low cloud and steady drizzle, and visibility was poor. I had not had that information before, and that was enough for me.
I cracked. I decided that, if the pilots of a fixed-wing aircraft were going to have a chance of finding them in those conditions, they would need every minute of daylight they could get.
The boys had been tired, emotional, and frightened, and that had been when Chloë last spoke to them on the telephone sixteen hours before. I could only imagine what they were like now. I
decided we had to send out the search plane. At the very least, the boys needed to know we were there, monitoring their position; on top of this, the families were desperate to know their
husbands, sons and brothers were safe.
This longest day was reaching a dramatic conclusion.
19.26: At an airfield in Reykjavik, a fixed-wing aircraft is wheeled out of its hangar and prepares to fly out towards a precise position in the Denmark Strait, the position broadcast by our
tracker unit at 0316 hrs that Friday morning, the very last positional broadcast before power failed. The pilots have been told to search for five British men, who are hopefully still aboard a
small, open, yellow rigid inflatable boat.
19.28: Bear is sitting up in the bow of the boat; they are now only three miles from the west coast of Iceland. The SAT phone still has no power. Nige has been looking at his mobile phone,
waiting to come within range of an Icelandic network, to get a signal. It eventually happens. He shouts to Bear and hands him the phone, still in its watertight pouch.
Bear scrolls down to the name ‘Chloë Boyes’ in the menu, and clicks the call button.
19.29: Chloë and Andy Billing are sitting at the kitchen table on the barge, relieved that at last a decision has been made. The rescue aircraft will be on its way anytime now. They wait
and hope that this stomach-churning uncertainty will soon be resolved.
Suddenly, Chloë’s mobile starts to ring. She looks down and sees the name ‘Nigel Thompson’ flashing on the screen, and all of a sudden she feels as though her heart has
thudded against the inside of her ribcage.
‘Hi, Chloë , it’s Bear. I’ve got reception on Nige’s mobile.’
‘Where are you?’
‘About fifteen minutes from the coast of Iceland.’
19.30: Andy phones the Icelandic coastguard and tells them to call off the fixed-wing aircraft. The message is relayed to the pilots, and they taxi back to the hangar, maybe relieved, probably
irritated by the false alarm. They were on the tarmac, waiting for clearance to take off. Their flight was aborted with seconds to spare.
19.31: At her mother’s house in the country, Shara is talking to her sister on the mobile. Desperate. The house phone rings, and her mother takes the call.
‘They’re fine, Shara,’ she screams down the corridor. ‘They’re safe.’
Mother and daughter embrace, still in tears, but no longer tears of fear. Tears of relief.
It was almost
7.50 p.m. when we eventually pulled into the main harbour of Reykjavik. There wasn’t even a ripple on the water now, just the pitter-patter of
lightly falling rain. It was gloomy and the light was fading.
A lone fisherman emerged on the deck of a big icebreaker moored in the harbour. He waved nonchalantly. He hadn’t any idea where we had just come from, or what we had been through. He
carried on with his work, casually smoking. We idled on past. We couldn’t quite believe we were finally here, alive.
I knew the Sir Ranulph Fiennes quote would still be wedged on the mirror in our bedroom back home. ‘Them that stick it out, is them that win.’ It was true. The only difference was
that we had had no bloody choice but to stick it out. On this boat, there had been nowhere for us to hide.
I thought of home. I missed our cosy bedroom.
As we pulled alongside the wooden jetty in the marina part of the harbour, we began to set about the routine of tying up. Everyone was exhausted. Nobody was there to meet us because nobody had
known where we were.
As Nige began to unpack some of the kit, he turned to me, smiling, and said, ‘So guess which of our friends would have had the biggest fit if they had been out in the boat with us for five
minutes last night?’ Once again, he was chuckling to himself.
I thought for about one second only and then, in unison, we both looked at each other and said, ‘Caroline and Shara.’
Shara’s best friend, Caroline, loved sailing, but only with a gin and tonic in hand and a rather fit man in tight white trousers close by. The pair of them would have had the fireball of
all fireballs in this boat all right. We laughed at the thought.
Moored alongside that quay in Reykjavik, our relief was written all over us. The spectacle of five men – dressed like yellow Michelin men, all of us pale, wrinkly and drained, clambering
up on to the dock and crouching to kiss a jetty that stank of diesel and dead fish – was magical. We had done it.
But we had taken it to the wire.
Willie recalls:
I was mightily relieved they were safe, and also that the fixed-wing aircraft had been recalled before it took off to search for them. And I could now stop fingering
Mick’s American Express card, which was to be used as a guarantee for the flight!
Mick had proved himself almost unstoppable, but that bill, I suspect, would have wiped the smile off his stubbly face. He grabbed me warmly on the quay at Reykjavik. We had no idea of the drama
that had unfolded at home, but we were on land at last. That was all that mattered.
The ice and the unpredictable Arctic seas were behind us. From here we would be heading down into northern European waters; we were no longer a million miles from home.
Chance favours only those who know how to court her.
Hannibal
Sleep came easily
in Iceland. We were all exhausted, in mind, body and spirit. Ever since we had arrived, the driving rain and wind had not relented, and we were just so
relieved to be off the sea.
We went out that first night around midnight and found the finest steak-house in the city, where we drank cocktails without a thought of the expense. No one cared. We were safe, we were warm and
we were together.
I had phoned Shara after we checked into the hotel and I was missing her like crazy now. As we ate and drank, I remember longing for her to be with us: celebrating, without a care in the world.
I can’t even remember what time we eventually got back to the hotel.
I would have given anything to have had Shara there that night, to put my arms around and sleep beside her – no offence to Nige, with whom I was sharing a room, but by now I had spent too
many nights with him, curled up spooning in what had started to feel like a metal coffin on the ocean.
‘The coastguards
were pretty trigger-happy, don’t you reckon?’ Mick said, sitting around at breakfast the next morning. ‘If we’d arrived
ten minutes later, their plane would have been in the air and we would have had a bill for thousands.’ He was talking to himself as much as anyone. ‘Then again, if you want anyone to be
trigger-happy, it is them, I suppose.’ That was true. He carried on eating his cereal.