Ghosts of the Pacific (5 page)

NAVIGATING THE FURY
and Hecla Strait was the first time I
ever actually felt trapped in my submarine. Had I known
what we were in for ahead of time, I might have turned back.

The strait was impassable to regular ships year-round because the ice never cleared. Never. An icebreaker was required
to get through. Arctic ice was older and thicker than Antarctic ice because it was surrounded by land and didn't have
warmer summer currents passing through to allow a melt
between winters. Old ice met with new ice and grew thicker.
There was supposed to be less ice than before but I wouldn't
know; this was my first time in the Arctic.

Fury
and
Hecla
were two ships of William Parry, the explorer who had tried to find a way through the Arctic in
1822, but failed. He wintered in Igloolik. He probably met
Stephen and Nanuq's ancestors. Cool. Parry tried but couldn't
get through the strait so he named it after his ships. That
seemed like a good name for it because of the fury of the ice.

The strait was a hundred miles long, fifteen miles wide
and three hundred feet deep in the eastern mouth. The ice
was five to ten feet thick. That's what the books said and
that's what I saw. All we had to do was submerge beneath the
ice, motor through the strait, which would take about ten
hours, and surface on the other side. That sounded easy
enough. There was just one problem: I didn't know if the
other side was ice-free or not. What if it wasn't and we
couldn't find any place to surface? Then we'd have to motor
back. But we could sail on battery power only for twenty
hours. Once we ran out of power I'd have to pedal, and that
was really slow. And, except for sonar, we were blind underwater. But we couldn't fully trust sonar because of the ice. I
couldn't even know for sure if we were sailing in the right
direction. I had read that whales had the same problem. They
got trapped under the ice and drowned. That was awful.

A voice inside told me not to do it. It was too dangerous.
But the only other way through the Arctic was to sail all the
way back through the Hudson Strait, then north around
Baffin Island into Lancaster Sound, which was the same distance as sailing to Nova Scotia. And Lancaster Sound might
be ice-blocked too. It was another three hundred and fifty
miles due north.

If we were facing a solid wall of ice ten feet thick I might
have turned around. But we weren't. There were patches of
open water. When I stood up on the portal with the binoculars and scanned the ice ahead of us, it looked like a white
and grey swamp with sharp ridges, and small patches here
and there that looked like quicksand holes. If we could just
find a few of those holes along our way we could surface,
run the engine and recharge the batteries. That would be
great. We just had to find them.

I decided to try a two-mile stretch first. If that seemed too
difficult, I wouldn't go any further.

I submerged to a hundred feet, set our speed at ten knots
and sat down at the sonar panel with a notepad and pencil.
I didn't have charts for the strait, but sonar gave a decent
outline of the floor and I traced it with a pencil on paper,
even though I knew this was a very imperfect kind of tracking. If we retraced our steps just a couple of miles north or
south of this route the topography might look entirely different. Still, it gave me
some
kind of information and made
me feel less blind.

Ten minutes later, when we should have been about two
miles in, I started to surface very slowly. I was expecting to
strike ice with the portal and didn't want to strike it hard. At
about seven feet from the surface I heard a gentle crunch
above us and we came to a stop. It didn't bother me; that's
what I expected. I looked at the sonar screen but all I saw
was a confusing mix of lines and shadows, none of which I
could trust. I had to search for ice holes like a seal, except
that I couldn't see the light shining down the way seals could
because the observation window was on the bottom of the
bow.

I submerged to twenty feet, pedalled a short distance, came
up again and struck ice gently at six feet. After two more tries
the sub came right up and we surfaced. I peeked through the
periscope for polar bears before opening the hatch and
sticking my head out. What a strange world this was, this sea
of ice. It was how I imagined a colder planet would look:
caked in ice, like a scaly, frozen skin, billions of years old.

Submerging again, I decided to try a ten-mile stretch. Feeling confident we wouldn't strike ice at a hundred feet beneath the surface, I increased our speed to twelve knots, sat
down at the sonar screen and traced the topography again.
Forty-five minutes later we surfaced. This time we struck ice
at eight feet from the surface. On our second try we were
only three feet from the surface and I heard a loud crack
above. Maybe we could have pushed through but I didn't
want to risk getting stuck. After four more tries I started to
feel discouraged. But turning back was not a decision I could
make lightly. So, I kept trying. After three more tries we
broke through a thin sheet of ice and surfaced completely. It
had taken nine tries this time. Yikes. But at least I could run
the engine now and recharge the batteries. And we only had
eighty-five miles to go.

We continued sailing. Every forty-five minutes we came
up and I searched for holes in the ice. It usually took about
six tries. There were enough holes around if I just kept trying. But it was really tiring and I couldn't wait to get through
the strait. I sure wouldn't want to sail through the whole
Arctic this way.

When we were halfway through, Seaweed decided he
wanted out, so we stayed on the surface for a few hours. I was
inside cutting up vegetables for stew and Hollie was chewing the stub of a carrot when Seaweed came flying through
the portal so fast he scared the heck out of us.

“Seaweed! What's going on?”

He was breathing hard and looked upset. That was weird.
I looked him over but he seemed okay. I climbed the portal
and stuck my head outside. I didn't see anything. Then, just
fifty feet away, perched on top of a jagged bergy bit, like a
silent, ghostly warrior, was a huge snowy owl. It must have
chased Seaweed back to the sub. It was beautiful. I grabbed
my camera. The owl stared at me while I took its picture. My
Arctic guidebook said that snowy owls had been known to
chase wolves away. Wow. Seaweed was lucky he had made it
back to the sub in one piece. The Arctic was a dangerous
place for all of us.

Our next attempt was not successful after six tries so I
decided to keep going. I felt confident we could find breathing holes if we just searched long enough. I climbed up on
the bike for a pedal. Hollie hopped onto the treadmill. We
listened to a recording of African music that Sheba had given
me. It was peaceful and soothing and helped keep us calm.

Forty-five minutes later I tried to surface again. I kept
striking ice six to ten feet from the surface. After four tries I
felt really frustrated. This was insane. I decided to try one
last time. We struck ice at twelve feet, then the ice shifted
and we rose several more feet, but not quite to the surface.
As we went up I heard the ice scrape against the hull. It was
a tight squeeze. Then, we stopped. I knew we were just a few
feet from the surface, which meant that the top of the portal was either just above or just below the surface because it
rose three feet above the hull. I pumped more air into the
tanks but we didn't rise any further. Shoot! Oh, well, then I
figured we'd go back down. I let water into the tanks but
nothing happened. That was strange. I filled the tanks for a
steep dive. Nothing happened. We were stuck!

THE ICE FORMED A
cocoon around us. I went to the observation window and looked down. Dark, chunky ice pressed
against the window. I flicked on the floodlights but they
were blocked by ice. I tried raising the periscope but it was
blocked by ice. Don't panic, I told myself. There's no need to
panic, just think it through.

If only I knew how far the top of the hatch was from the
surface. Maybe it was above; maybe below. If it was below
and I opened it, freezing water would flood in. But I could
shut it. I'd get soaked and frozen but I could dry off and
warm up. At least then I would know. Besides, what else
could I do? If we just sat there the ice would thicken and seal
us in for days, weeks, or maybe forever.

So, I climbed the ladder, took a few deep breaths and
braced myself. I was going to unseal the hatch, push it up a
tiny bit, hold on to it with both hands and be ready to pull
it back down. I could push against the wall with my feet if I
had to. I had done that before.

One, two, three . . . I opened the hatch just a crack. A drop
of water hit me in the face, then a splash. I braced myself for
a flood.

But it never came. Instead, I saw blinding sunlight. I lifted
the hatch wide open. Another splash hit me in the face. I
stuck my head out. The top of the portal was exactly level
with the surface. It was like sticking your head up when you
were swimming, except that I was dry. Suddenly I remembered I had filled the tanks with water. If the ice released us
we would sink fast. I rushed back inside and pumped air
into the tanks. We rose a few more inches, stopped, then a
few more. Then the ice squeezed together beneath the hull
and pushed us right up. Yes! We were on the surface now.

The sea moaned and groaned all around us. Chunks of
ice were rising over other chunks and others were being
pushed down. There were bergy bits sticking up like wisdom
teeth with deeper roots. Nowhere was there flat ice. Everything was in movement too—a very slow movement, except
for the smaller pieces falling off bigger pieces, and chunks
suddenly appearing and disappearing.

I went inside for the binoculars, strapped on the harness
and stood up on the hatch. As far as I could see, the ice
sparkled and reflected every imaginable colour, though
mostly grey and blue because of the shadows. I couldn't see
the horizon. I couldn't see land. I couldn't see anything but
ice stretching out endlessly. And we were stuck in the middle of it.

This was not ice you could walk on. It was like a rocky
beach, except the rocks were not smooth and round; they
were sharp and jagged, and there were holes where you
might disappear and freeze to death in minutes. We had to
stay where we were and wait for the ice to shift again and
free us. I wondered how long that would be.

A long time.

Seaweed climbed the ladder, looked around very carefully,
then came back down. I was glad. I didn't want him to get
eaten by a snowy owl. Hollie climbed the portal with me,
took a few sniffs and looked around, then wanted back
down. He didn't care for the blinding sunlight. He was
happy to return to his cosy blanket and continue mauling
his rope.

I ran the engine and recharged the batteries but didn't put
the motor in gear. I knew I had to keep the propeller free of
ice build-up, but didn't know what might be in the way already, and didn't want to spin it against resistance. Instead,
I spun it gently by turning the bicycle pedals. Although that
was enough to keep it clear, I figured I'd have to do it every
hour or so.

But that wasn't enough. Each time I turned the pedals I
felt more resistance. After a few hours they wouldn't turn at
all. Now, even if we could dive, we couldn't sail. If there was
ice around the propeller, how would it ever melt in this
water? It wouldn't. So, I would have to go out and clear it. To
do that, I'd have to put on the wetsuit. Rats.

It wasn't as though I had anything else to do. We were getting more deeply frozen in the ice all the time and the hours
were starting to drag on. But since it wasn't getting dark it
was hard to remember how long we were here.

I pulled on the suit, put the harness on over that, tied it to
a twenty-foot length of rope and tied that to the hatch. I
went out on the hull with the gaff and shut the hatch. The
hull was so slippery I had to crawl to the stern on my hands
and knees. I reached down and jabbed at the ice with the
gaff until the propeller was free. It was hard work. Then I
went back inside and took off the suit. That was a lot of
work too, getting in and out of the suit. I decided to do it
only every two hours; that ought to be enough. But what
about sleeping? What would I do then? And what if the ice
opened up while I was asleep and we missed our chance to
escape?

I decided I had to stay awake.

Well, I tried. It was easier to stay awake when we were sailing. Sitting still like this, with nothing happening and nothing changing, was the most boring thing in the whole world
and I couldn't stay awake. I tried everything: I made tea, rode
the bike, did chin-ups, read books, checked equipment, but
the moment I sat still, I started to fall asleep. So, I decided to
go to bed and set my alarm for two hours. Every two hours
I'd get up, put on the wetsuit, go out and clear the ice.

The first two hours felt as though I had slept for days,
except that I didn't feel rested at all. It just felt like a lot of
time had passed when it hadn't. I woke even more tired. I
hated putting on the suit and considered going out without
it, but knew I couldn't do that.

After the second two hours I felt kind of sick. I was really
hoping to find that conditions had changed and we were
free. We weren't. The ice was harder to clear and I felt deeply
frustrated.

The third time I climbed out of the portal I felt like a
zombie. I slipped on the hull, fell over the side and hit the
ice hard. That hurt a lot and a jagged piece of ice cut my wetsuit at the shoulder. It was like hitting concrete. I couldn't
imagine this ice ever clearing. What were we going to do?

After what seemed like forever, a day passed. We were still
stuck in the ice like a frozen fish. I knew a day had passed
only by watching the clock. I had stopped going out to clear
ice from the propeller. I figured if we ever got free, I'd just
rush out and do it all at once. It would be hard to do but I'd
have a lot of energy because I'd be so excited to get the heck
out of here.

One day turned into two. Never before in my life had I
watched time pass so slowly. It felt like we were shipwrecked
on an island. Seaweed was afraid to go out because of the
snowy owl. He just hung around on the hull and slept. Hollie didn't feel like running on the treadmill and I didn't feel
like pedalling. Everything seemed so pointless. I didn't want
to read anymore. I didn't want to do exercises. I didn't want
to do anything. I just sat and twiddled my thumbs. Now I
knew why people twiddled their thumbs. When there was
absolutely nothing else to do, when you couldn't even sleep,
you could somehow still twiddle your thumbs. You just spun
one thumb around the other. Then you spun the other one.
Then you changed direction from clockwise to counterclockwise. Then you picked at your nails. Then you twiddled your thumbs again. Twiddling your thumbs was probably invented to keep people from going insane.

What I didn't want to admit was that I was afraid. Ziegfried had told me that the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself. He said he believed that too—even though he couldn't
always practise it. He was afraid of drowning, for instance. I
sensed he was also afraid of Sheba, or afraid that she wouldn't
like him. But of course she did. Fear wasn't a rational thing.
I already knew that. I also knew that we were good and stuck
and that our situation was more serious than I wanted to
admit. I should have been trying to reach Ziegfried by shortwave to let him know what was happening, but I couldn't
yet. I didn't want him to worry. I could have tried to reach
the coastguard and ask them to come and rescue us, but
how I would have hated that, just hated it. I couldn't make
that call. Not yet.

Finally, I forced myself to read. I picked up a book on the
Franklin expedition. We weren't far from where the Franklin
ships went missing. I read out loud so Seaweed and Hollie
could hear it too.

The most famous ships ever to sail into the Northwest Passage were the
Erebus
and
Terror
, the two ships of the fatal
Franklin expedition of 1845. They sailed into the Arctic and
never sailed out. All of the crew of a hundred and twenty-eight died. They sailed from England with a three-year supply of food, tools, medical supplies, and over a thousand
books. After their ships became trapped in the ice, historians
believe the crew went crazy from lead poisoning, from poorly canned food. They tried valiantly to escape overland but
couldn't survive the harsh conditions of the Arctic. Researchers found piles of bones on King William Island over
a hundred years later. Cut marks on the bones suggest the
crew had practised cannibalism.

“Hey, they ate their own crew! Can you believe it?”

Hollie and Seaweed just stared at me blankly.

“They ate their own crew! Isn't that terrible?”

Hollie dropped his head and continued chewing his rope.
Seaweed looked at me with an expression that seemed to
say: so?

I would never eat my crew, no matter how desperate I
was. I would die of starvation first. I bent down and held
Hollie's furry little head in my hands. “Would you eat me if
I died, Hollie, and you were starving?”

He looked up at me with devotion in his eyes. Nope. No
way. He would curl up beside me, whine and die of starvation too. He was such a loyal dog.

“How about you, Seaweed? Would you . . .?”

Absolutely! I didn't even have to finish. He glared at me
with his icy seagull eyes and I knew that he would. He
wouldn't wait long to do it either.