by Philip Roy
“A month? We crossed the Atlantic in a week and a half!”
“Ice, Al. Ice is the demon waiting for you, even though they say the Arctic is freer of ice than ever before. You’ll have to see that for yourself. Once you leave the Labrador Sea and wind through the passage you’ll have to slow down. It isn’t icebergs or sheets of ice you’ll have to worry about. It’s calved ice.”
“Calved ice?”
“Small chunks that break off icebergs and float just beneath the surface. They’re called growlers and they’re pretty much invisible. The force of your impact with a growler is the mathematical square of your speed of impact.”
“Which means . . .?”
“Which means: if you are sailing at ten knots and you strike a growler, the force of your impact will be one hundred units. But if you are sailing twice as fast, at twenty knots, then the force of your impact will be four hundred units, four times as much. Get it?”
“Umm . . .”
“Imagine falling out of a tree, Al. If you climb just a bit higher, it’s going to hurt twice as much when you hit the ground. Get it?”
“Got it.”
Then he dropped his bushy eyebrows, stared into my eyes and spoke in his gravest tone, which reminded me of the old man in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a poem Sheba gave me to bring along on this journey. “Once you enter the ice flow, Al, sail as slowly as you can stand it. Then . . . cut that speed in half.”
“What? Really?”
“Really.”
“But that will take forever.”
“No. It will take a month. Have you visited your grandparents yet?”
“Yup. My grandfather asked me if I was still sailing around in that old tin can.”
“He did?”
“I said, yes, of course I was. He’s still hoping I’ll join him on his fishing boat. He sure doesn’t give up easily.”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Al.”
“What?”
“It’s an expression. It’s good to be stubborn, Al. Serves you well at sea.”
“Oh. My grandfather said it was a good thing I was exploring the world now because I’d be too afraid to do it when I was older. Isn’t that weird?”
Ziegfried didn’t answer. He just listened.
“I asked him what he meant by it and he said, ‘You think you’re invulnerable when you’re young. Everybody does. You think nothing bad’s going to happen to you. Then, when you’re a little older, you realize that bad things do happen, even to you. No, you’d better get all your exploring out of your system now, Alfred, while you’re still young enough.’ I told him I didn’t agree with that at all, that it doesn’t matter how old you are. You either face your fears or you don’t, it seems to me.”
“That’s well said, Al. What did he say to that?”
“He started talking about the weather.”
Ziegfried laughed. “Sounds like your grandfather. He cares a great deal about you, Al. Make no mistake about it. That’s just the way he expresses it.”
“I suppose.”
We sailed for the Pacific—Hollie, Seaweed and I—on the first of August, just after midnight. Ziegfried and Sheba saw us off with hugs, words of encouragement, and lots of tears. Ziegfried and I would meet up somewhere in the Pacific, as we had done in Crete the year before. We hadn’t decided where yet. As I backed the sub out of the cove, turned and headed out to sea, I stood in the portal and saluted them. They were the greatest people I would ever know. Now my tears fell, when no one could see them.
The sub cut through the dark like a migrating bird towards the North Pole. Hollie and I stood in the portal and let the wind blow in our faces as the bow ploughed the sea in front of us. We would sail due north for seven hundred miles before turning west into the Hudson Strait.
Ziegfried’s warning to sail slowly weighed heavily on my mind. I wasn’t worried about puncturing the hull if we struck ice. It was built of reinforced steel and supported by a strong wooden frame on the inside. There was also an insulating, shock-absorbing layer of rubber in between the wood and steel. Ziegfried had designed the sub to bounce like a ball if it ever struck anything. And we had struck lots of things before, including ice, and bounced well enough— sort of how you would bounce off the floor of a gymnasium if you fell. I was more concerned that a few good blows would jar things loose or crack the engine casing or break mechanical components in the drive shaft or battery set-up, not to mention the discomfort and danger to the crew being knocked around inside.
But for the first seven hundred miles we could expect ice-free sailing. And that is what we received.
It took three and a half days. We sailed on the surface with the hatch wide open and the engine cranked up, cutting eighteen knots, our fastest cruising speed, with a couple of knots of current pushing us from behind. I wished sailing was always so easy. To sleep we dove to two hundred feet, shut everything off and drifted in the deeper, slower current travelled by naval submarines and whales, either of which would have woken me with a presence on sonar.
I spent those days repacking our supplies: the canned food, boxed food and dried food that stuck out from every corner; the bananas, grapes and fresh bread that hung down from the ceiling; and the oranges, apples, potatoes and root vegetables that crowded the compartments in the stern. And I pored over the maps and charts I had of the Arctic.
The engine hummed along with a sound like perfection. Some people find the sound of waves, or the wind through trees, peaceful and soothing. For me it was the hum of our engine, even though it was, as Ziegfried called it, a “well-behaved explosion in a pretty tank.” I found it comforting and reassuring. It was the sound of power and independence. It made me feel strong and confident.
We were carrying enough fuel to sail roughly ten thousand miles. That would take us to the far side of the Pacific. I would buy diesel somewhere over there to sail back. If we ever ran out of fuel I had the stationary bike, which could propel the sub at a speed of four knots when I pedalled steadily. At that rate, taking into consideration winds and currents, and how much I could pedal each day, it would probably take us about a year to reach the far side of the Pacific. But I wasn’t planning on running out of fuel.
Chapter 3
ZIEGFRIED WAS AN amazing inventor. Of all his inventions, besides my sub, the one I liked the most was a doggie treadmill for Hollie. I thought it was really cool and hoped it would solve a big problem for the long distances we travelled: Hollie’s need for exercise. It was two feet long and ten inches wide. It fit sideways against the inside hull, beside the stationary bike, when it wasn’t being used. I simply dropped it into place whenever I pedalled, and Hollie would jump onto it immediately. The treadmill had a tiny motor with three speeds. Hollie could trot, run gently, or, if he were bursting with energy, run fast. He loved it.
He ran at the very front, leaving half of the track free. When he wanted to get off, he ran faster and jumped off the front. The only thing we didn’t anticipate was Seaweed’s interest. If Hollie got something new, Seaweed wanted it too.
Seaweed would jump on after Hollie but could only stay on when the treadmill was in trot speed. Seagulls weren’t built for jogging. He was twice Hollie’s height but took up less space with his feet. When Seaweed was on the treadmill I had to turn my head the other way because I would start to laugh. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. But Sheba had told me never to laugh at an animal or a bird—it was a sign of disrespect—so I had to look the other way.
Fortunately Hollie preferred a steady run, and Seaweed could only stand beside him, glare at him and occasionally nip at the track with his beak. I didn’t think it was unfair; Seaweed got to fly outside for hours every day.
Another piece of new equipment was an inflatable kayak, a birthday present for me from Ziegfried and Sheba. I had tested it already and it was amazing. It was just ten feet long and cut through the water like a razor. I kept it folded beneath my seat at the panel board. That was one thin
g about travelling in a sub: everything had to be kept in its own exact spot and measured to the quarter inch.
The kayak inflated quickly, just like the rubber dinghy. We ran an air hose up the inside of the portal, and the kayak took only thirty seconds to inflate. I made a test to see how quickly I could pull it from under my seat, climb the portal with it, unwrap it, inflate it, grab the paddle pieces, screw them together into one, throw on a life jacket and jump into the kayak with Hollie. Two and a half minutes. We should have been on TV.
Deflating the kayak, folding it, wrapping it up and putting everything back in its place took about fifteen minutes.
The last piece of new equipment was a desalinator. It looked like a fancy teapot from ancient Persia. The metal on the bottom was thin and heated quickly, but the sides were insulated to keep the heat inside. You filled the pot with salt water and it started boiling from the bottom, creating steam, which separated the salt from the water. Steam doesn’t carry salt because it’s too heavy. The top of the pot was sealed except for a narrow copper tube through which the steam would escape then condense into water in another pot. But if you ran the water through only once it was still too salty to drink. Running it twice was better, though it was still a good idea to run it through a filter after that to remove the last traces of salt and other minerals, like gold. Ziegfried said that sea water carried traces of gold. The desalinator was good for cleaning rainwater too, which could be kind of salty at sea.
I discovered that first-run water from the desalinator was perfect for making stew. Sheba had shown me how to make a pot of stew in a small pressure cooker. I used one potato, one carrot, one onion, one clove of garlic, one tablespoon of butter and one pinch of spice—a mix of thyme, sage, pepper and rosemary. Ziegfried raised his eyebrows and called it “sub-stew.” But if you ate it with a hard biscuit it was really good!
Seven hundred miles north of Bonavista Bay we turned sharp to the port side. The Button Islands were to the south and Resolution Island to the north as we entered the Hudson Strait. We had been sailing only three and a half days, and I couldn’t believe how much the climate had already changed. The temperature had dropped from twenty-one degrees to three. The air was fresh but cold. The water looked different too, although I couldn’t say why. It was just as dark at home. But here there was something else, something foreboding.
It was so hard to take Ziegfried’s advice and slow down. If we didn’t slow down we could sail through the Northwest Passage in a week. With Ziegfried’s advice it would take a month. Could we, maybe, split the difference?
I decided to cut our speed to twelve knots. Even that was so slow I could barely stand it. I climbed the portal, strapped on the harness, stood on top of the hatch with the binoculars and scanned the water. There was no ice. And it was sunny.
Nothing showed on radar either, although my mariner’s manual said not to trust radar for ice. Sometimes it will show and sometimes not. Sometimes it will leave just a shadow on the screen like the dry spot under a tree after a rain shower, except that sometimes a huge tree leaves only a small spot. Don’t trust radar, they warned. Okay.
So we sailed at twelve knots, which was slower than I wanted but faster than Ziegfried advised. Seaweed took to the air like a kite. I pedalled. Hollie ran on the treadmill. Then we stood in the portal for a few hours together and leaned against the hatch and watched the sky grow less sunny, although the sun never actually went away. It just settled behind some clouds and turned red. Then, very slowly the red faded to grey, like an element cooling down on a stove. As the sun faded, the temperature dropped. Now I was pretty sure it was freezing. It had that feel to it, as when ice forms on puddles overnight. Hollie sniffed the cold air.
“Can you smell ice, Hollie?”
He looked up. Maybe.
At the end of the day the sun was still up, glowing weakly behind darkening clouds. It was going to rain, I thought. Without darkness it was hard to know when to sleep. I steered closer to Baffin Island. We would have to drop anchor to sleep. To do that we’d have to sail close to shore. The strait was a thousand feet deep in most places.
By the time the first drops of rain fell, the cliffs of Baffin Island loomed above us. They were tall and gloomy, like silent warriors standing at the edge of the land. I bet they were beautiful in the sun. Seaweed had flown to shore. I dropped anchor in forty feet, shut the hatch, dimmed the lights, climbed into my cot and drifted off to sleep. Hollie made a reconnaissance of the sub’s interior before settling on his blanket. I heard him sniffing. I knew what he was sniffing for too. I had hidden his rope.
To keep him sharp.
Nine hours later I woke, stretched, climbed the portal and opened the hatch to find a very miserable bird sitting on the hull in freezing rain. “Good morning, Seaweed. Want some breakfast?”
I fed the crew, put the kettle on for tea, poured oats into the pot for porridge and slid the bar across the inside of the portal to do chin-ups. By the time the water was boiling I had done three sets. It would have been nice to jump over the side for a swim but the water was about half of one degree. At that temperature I would be unconscious in a minute, dead in four. There’s no such thing as swimming in Arctic water. Hollie would probably last a little longer than that. Seaweed could sit on the water all day.
I did have a wetsuit though. It was under the mattress on my cot. Wrapped up in the wetsuit I might last fifteen minutes or so. It was hard to say. That’s what was so threatening about Arctic water: it would kill you if you fell in and didn’t get out fast enough. That’s why I had an unbreakable rule never to come out of the portal without the harness strapped on properly when the sub was moving. It was a matter of life and death.
After breakfast we weighed anchor and turned into the current, heading northwest. Everything was misty and rainy now, a very cold rain. Tough as he was, Seaweed must have had a nasty night. He settled down on his spot opposite Hollie and went into a deep sleep. Hollie sniffed around until he found his rope under the treadmill, carried it triumphantly to his blanket and mauled it. I climbed the portal with the binoculars, strapped on the harness and stood up for a look.
It was bleak. Visibility was poor. Should we slow down more? That’s what I couldn’t decide. We hadn’t seen any ice yet and the water still looked clear, so I decided to stick to twelve knots. Even at that speed it would take three days just to pass through the Hudson Strait.
The next day was exactly the same—quiet and uneventful. The slow pace was really getting on my nerves. I tried to stay busy by studying charts, watching sonar, reading books and pedalling the bike. But by the morning of the third day I just had to get out of the sub, I was feeling so restless. I decided to take the kayak for a paddle.
The only safe way to do that was to wear the wetsuit. But climbing into the wetsuit was like stretching a balloon over a pop bottle. I was sweating like crazy when I finally got it all zipped up. Now, only my face was exposed, and my cheeks were squashed together like a pumpkin. A wetsuit wasn’t comfortable until you dived underwater and the material became wet and lost its tightness.
I pulled the kayak from under my seat. Hollie jumped up and wagged his tail excitedly. “No, Hollie. I’m sorry. You can’t come today; it’s too dangerous.”
He frowned. His shoulders dropped and his eyebrows fell over his eyes. Seaweed opened one eye then shut it. I felt like a mummy climbing out of a tomb trying to get up the portal with the kayak and paddles.
The wind had picked up a little bit and it blew freezing rain into my face. I considered turning back but the wind wasn’t that strong yet and I wasn’t planning on going far. Besides, it had been so much work getting the suit on. So, I inflated the kayak, screwed the paddle together, shut the hatch and climbed onto the hull. I didn’t bother with a life-jacket because the wetsuit was pure buoyancy. Don’t be nervous, I told myself. It was just the same as getting into a kayak anywhere else. Since I had never fallen out of a boat of any kind ever, why should I worry about it now, even
though I was as stiff as a board? I sat down, tied a rope around my waist and through a handle on the kayak, gave a push against the hull and was off.
The kayak was so quick. It didn’t matter which way the current was flowing. It didn’t matter how strong it was, or the wind; the kayak easily skimmed across the surface. This was how the Inuit used to hunt seals, in kayaks made out of sealskin. I read once that a hunter had travelled all the way from Greenland to Baffin Island in a sealskin kayak. Wow!
After a few minutes I was surprised to see the first chunk of ice. I couldn’t see it clearly through the freezing rain. It was teetering on the edge of the shore next to some rocks. It was just one piece of ice all by itself. Then, oddly enough, it dropped into the water and made quite a splash. I was surprised to see how quickly the current grabbed hold of it and pulled it out. That was weird. The current wasn’t that strong. What was going on?
Curious, I paddled towards the chunk of ice. It was mostly submerged, just as a growler was supposed to be. I could barely see it. But it was there. It must have picked up a few rocks on shore because I saw a dark spot right at the tip of the little piece jutting up out of the water. But it was coming in my direction so quickly. How could that be? I stopped paddling for a second. I raised myself up with my hands on my thighs and tried to see more clearly. It wasn’t more than a hundred feet away now. And then I saw something that made me panic: two eyes. It wasn’t a chunk of ice at all—it was a polar bear!
I spun around so fast the front of the kayak came right out of the water. The polar bear chased me all the way back to the sub. It was such a strong swimmer I couldn’t believe it! But I stopped panicking when I realized I could paddle faster than the bear could swim. Still, it kept coming after me and that was frightening. I couldn’t make the slightest mistake, such as dropping the oar or slowing down. Polar bears eat seals and I must have looked like a seal wrapped up in my black wetsuit.
