by Philip Roy
“Holy smokes, I sure hope not! You wouldn’t believe the crazy talk here, and the crazy talk there. I’m sure glad you didn’t get messed up in that, eh?”
“Yah.”
I felt badly for not telling Ziegfried everything, but he would only worry. There would be lots of bumps along the road in my journey. I knew that. I didn’t want him to have to worry every single time. After a breakfast of oranges, cookies and dog biscuits with the crew, I took our bearing, made my best guess at the charts, cranked up the engine, climbed onto the bicycle seat and headed east. Seaweed took to the sky. Hollie ran around and around the stationary bike, then wrestled with a piece of rope. I tuned the radio to Spanish guitar.
After a while I climbed the portal to make sure Seaweed was still within sight. Boy, did I get a surprise!
I poked my head out the portal and found myself surrounded by a dozen large, strange-looking geese lined up on the bow and stern, just the way submariners line up during a ceremony. They had obviously flown a long way and were very tired. They tucked their beaks into their feathers and went right to sleep, oblivious to me or to the rather territorial Seaweed, who was making a fuss about it over their heads, to no avail; the geese rested until they were good and ready to leave.
It became common for really tough looking, long-distance seabirds to drop out of the sky and treat the sub like a mini-aircraft carrier. But landing was difficult and sometimes they would miss the hull altogether and hit the sea. Then they would shake the water from their wings and hop up. Seaweed didn’t like it but I felt honoured to have them.
On the third night the sky was clear and the stars glittered like diamonds and sapphires. There were so many! If you stared at any black spot long enough, you would eventually see a star. I stood in the portal, mesmerized, with Hollie under my arm and Seaweed on the bow. Once in a while we would hear a splash in the water but wouldn’t see anything. Hollie would bark, but I never knew what he was barking at. After the sun came up, on our fourth day at sea, I dove to two hundred feet, turned the lights low, got cozy and went to sleep. Nine hours later we woke on the surface again, in a tossing sea.
I couldn’t believe it! Always the sub was rising to the surface, never sinking, at least not while I was awake. Why was that? I knew I hadn’t made tests as thoroughly as Ziegfried would have liked, but I did test a little, and nothing had moved at all. What was going on?
On our fourth night at sea I figured we were roughly halfway to the Azores and probably a bit north. I’d have a better idea when we were closer. The sea was changing now. The small choppy waves had become rising swells. The sun had disappeared in the day. There would be no stars this night. But the biggest indication that bad weather was coming was Seaweed. When we came out for our evening air, he took to the sky but didn’t go far. Then, he landed on the stern instead of the bow, and seemed a bit agitated. Very uncharacteristic of him, he came inside earlier than usual. Little did I know what was really on his mind.
It was just a little while later; I was in the engine compartment making a routine inspection when seawater began rushing into the sub! We were diving! Horrified, I raced to the ladder, pulled myself up under the water flooding in, grabbed hold of the hatch, pulled it shut and sealed it. Whew! I was shocked! I was completely soaked. I looked down. Hollie was looking up at me. He was soaked too. There were several inches of water on the floor and the sump pumps were running full blast trying to remove it. I had a terrible feeling in my stomach. The sub was malfunctioning. We would have to return to Newfoundland. It was too dangerous now.
I felt so disappointed, so terribly disappointed, I could barely contain it. I went to the control panel, slumped down on the seat and dropped my head. I felt like crying. But what would that solve? It was a setback, nothing more. Explorers didn’t cry at setbacks; children did. The mature thing to do was to recognize that there was a problem and take the proper steps to fix it, even if that meant returning and starting all over again. That’s what Ziegfried would have said, and he always knew what he was talking about. If I wanted to survive at sea all by myself, then I had to face the challenges and setbacks like an adult. And so, I didn’t let myself cry. Instead, I took a deep breath and turned … just in time to see Seaweed raise a foot towards the switches. It was him! The little rascal! It was Seaweed all along! I couldn’t believe it! I opened my mouth to give him a scolding but caught myself. What was the point in scolding a seagull? Besides, he was a valuable member of the crew. I would just have to watch him around the control panel and cover it with a blanket when I was sleeping. Suddenly I was so happy I wanted to yell. I didn’t know if that was very adult-like or not. I did it anyway.
Returning to the surface, I couldn’t wait to call Ziegfried and explain what had happened. But the reception was poor. Ziegfried said there was another storm on the way and that I ought to brace myself. He said to keep a low profile in Spain, too; there was a storm on the political front.
The nice thing about a submarine is that you could simply dive beneath a storm and not even know it was there. But it did make navigation more difficult, and, in truth, I wasn’t navigating nearly as well as I thought I would. I would take a bearing, check the sea charts and more or less guess where we were. Then I’d do it an hour later and find that we were too far away from the first reading. We were always moving east, that much I knew for sure. I could always tell by the sun and stars, although the sun and stars were covered now and we only had the compass. And the worse the weather became, the poorer the compass reading was.
There wasn’t much danger to the sub in a storm, but getting tossed around on the surface could get pretty uncomfortable and seasickness was hard to avoid. So, we would submerge. Beneath the surface we had twenty hours of battery power when the batteries were fully charged, and I could pedal. All together we could sail for about twenty-two hours submerged, which might be enough to sail out of the storm if it were blowing in the opposite direction. If it were blowing in the same direction it was better to stay where we were and let it pass, although twenty-two hours submerged was kind of hard on the crew. We had to surface from time to time anyway to fill the air compressors. We needed a constant supply of compressed air for diving, surfacing and breathing. I kept a close eye on the air gauges as a matter of habit. That’s what was difficult about a storm — the inconvenience. On the sea, they started earlier and lasted longer. Having said that, I had to admit that storms at sea were pretty exciting. You never knew what might be coming your way …
Chapter Nine
I THOUGHT I WAS dreaming. The sonar was blinking away, as if there were a giant object closing in on us. I was caught in that place between sleep and waking, where you’re not really sure if it’s a dream or not. I opened my eyes. The sonar was blinking! I jumped to my feet and ran to the screen. There was a giant object outside! We were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, two hundred feet below the surface and there was a gigantic object immediately outside. I felt panic.
There was a tapping sound, like metal against glass. I turned my head. The tapping was coming from the observation window. I moved slowly towards the window as if I were floating through a nightmare. Flicking on the lights, I saw a face in the window staring up at me. He was inside a diving suit, his face pressed against the window. He gave me a thumbs-up with a questioning look. Was I all right? I gave a thumbs-up back, smiled awkwardly, then made the gesture for sleeping. I was okay; I had just been sleeping. He nodded, gave a thumbs-up again and saluted goodbye. I lifted the blanket off the control panel and flipped the switch to surface. As we rose, I watched the enormous object below slowly begin to move away. The sound of her motor was muffled and eerie, and the vibration made my teeth chatter. A nuclear-powered submarine — American, Russian, British, or French — I didn’t know which, but they had been incredibly friendly, stopping to check and see if I was all right. I put the kettle on for tea, fed the crew some dog biscuits and sat down to clear my head. Ziegfried had once said, “Don’t think you’ll be the o
nly submarine in the sea.” And how!
The storm had moved on, although the sea still rolled in large swells. At least it was sailable. Seaweed was happy to get into the sky again, and followed us closely, gliding in the wind like a kite. Hollie was anxious to stand in the portal with me and lean into the breeze, sniffing it for rabbits.
“I don’t think there are any rabbits here, Hollie.”
He didn’t care; he sniffed for them anyway. We were heading east; I had the sun behind the clouds to verify that. I would do my best to determine where we were exactly, but first needed time to get over the shock of the sudden wakening and unexpected company. Nuclear submarines patrolled the seas like it was nobody’s business. They could show up anywhere at anytime. But you would hardly expect one to stop and check out a tiny sub like mine, unless maybe there was a special camaraderie amongst submariners, as there was amongst sailors. Now the thought of that made me feel special.
For two more nights we sailed without event, sleeping in the days without visitors or interruption. But I was beginning to worry that we had passed the Azores. I scanned the charts and took lots of compass readings but could never say with certainty where we were. I never thought of it as being lost, only that we didn’t know exactly where we were, which wasn’t the same thing. Then, one night while watching the stars and noticing that sometimes at sea you would find stars very close to the horizon, I saw the brightest star sitting right on the horizon. Hollie saw it too. And it was blinking! Then I realized it wasn’t a star at all, it was a lighthouse! We had found the Azores! Yes!
A few hours later we were sitting in the water just a quarter of a mile from the northern cliffs of Corvo, the smallest and most northwesterly island of the Azores. The powerful lighthouse was lighting up Hollie’s eager, whiskered face every few seconds or so. Otherwise, we were in total darkness. Standing in the portal I heard the sonar beep. The sonar? But no radar? That was kind of strange. I went inside. According to the sonar, three vessels roughly our size were coming in quickly to meet us. Submarines? Did they patrol their island with mini-submarines? I couldn’t believe it.
I wondered if we should try to escape. What if they took the sub away from us? A sudden worry raced through my head: how would I ever get Seaweed home? Hollie would be allowed on a plane, no doubt, but would they let me travel with a seagull? Before I could decide what to do, there were two more beeps on the sonar. Two more mini-subs? Now we were surrounded!
I climbed the portal with Hollie still in my arms and he was barking the way he barked at rabbits. We heard a loud splash. Could they surface so quickly? There was another splash, so close that it sprayed us. By now we ought to have heard them on the radar but there was nothing. What kind of submarines were these?
In the moonlight I caught a glimpse of the outline of one as it rose out of the water and dove again, slapping its tail on the way down. Hollie barked ferociously after it. I laughed. These weren’t submarines; these were whales!
We leaned against the portal and listened to the whales until the sky turned a dark blue and an orange line appeared in the east. The whales became visible. Hollie’s bark had dwindled to a menacing growl, like a stuffed toy with a tiny motor vibrating in its belly. I had never seen whales up close before, except once, when a dead one drifted in with the tide. These whales were beautiful and playful. They really seemed to be playing. I could have watched them all day.
The sky brightened and the cliffs of Corvo glistened with light when the sun came over the horizon. I raised the binoculars to take a closer look at the cliffs and saw a man climbing down on steps cut into the rock. He was making his way quickly and waving his arms frantically. He was waving at us! He must have spotted us from the lighthouse. He seemed awfully anxious for us to come to shore. I went inside and grabbed the bag of flags. Sheba had fashioned the Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and Greek flags out of material from old dresses. The colours were not exact and the designs not perfect, but they looked pretty good from a distance. It was a courtesy to fly the flag of the country in whose waters you were sailing, as well as your own flag so they knew where you were from. I hooked the Canadian and Portuguese flags to the portal. The wind unfurled them and held them aloft. I steered towards the cliff and came in cautiously, keeping an eye on the sea floor with the sonar. It was just as steep beneath the surface as it was above. Could Atlantis be down there?
I held my passport in my pocket, ready to present it as soon as it was demanded. We came within a hundred feet of the cliff but I could see no place to tie up. I waved to the man and he waved back excitedly. I pulled out my passport. He strained to see it, then, guessing what it was, frowned impatiently and gestured for me to put it away. I put it back in my pocket. He made the gesture of eating and pointed up to the lighthouse. I nodded and went searching for a place to moor the sub.
His name was Arturo. He was the lighthouse keeper. He was short and stocky and had wavy black hair and a friendly face. His wife’s name was Anna. She was very beautiful and exceptionally friendly. They welcomed me as if I were the first person ever to visit them. Anna made a huge fuss over Hollie right away and I wondered if he was the first dog she had ever seen. Not at all. The way she picked him up and looked into his eyes showed she was a serious dog-lover. They had a daughter too — Nicola. Nicola was about my age, and was kind of … well, gothic. She had piercings on her earlobes, her eyebrows, nose and bottom lip. She had blue and green streaks in her hair and black fingernail polish. She kept staring at me as if I had come from the moon. She was easily the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, and I had a hard time not staring at her.
When we entered the house, which was attached to the lighthouse, I saw that the table had already been set for breakfast, with a plate set for me. I had barely said more than a few words when they started pushing food in front of me. Anna also prepared a plate for Hollie, with whom she had fallen in love. She set his plate on the table, too, but I insisted he eat on the floor. I didn’t want him to get spoiled or develop bad habits, such as eating off tables. Hollie looked up at me as if to say, “You never treat me like this.” I looked back sternly. “Don’t get used to it.”
Arturo was the only one who spoke English, and it was kind of hard for me to understand. He said he had once been a sailor and had visited Canada. He said that St. John’s had the friendliest pubs in the world. Anna and Nicola just smiled a lot and poured affection on Hollie, who sucked it up like a sponge. I wondered if I was going to have a hard time getting him to leave when it was time to go.
I asked Arturo if there was a place on the island where I should present my passport but he said, no, forget about it. On his island nobody cared. If I went to any of the bigger islands, then, yes, it might be a problem. Then he began to tell me how he loved to watch whales early in the morning and how amazed he was to discover that one of the whales was really a submarine. Anna wanted to know — did I really sail across the Atlantic? I nodded. All alone? Yes, well … I pointed to Hollie. She put her hands over her heart. Then I made the gesture of a squawking bird, but, try as I might, I could not get them to understand that the other member of the crew was a seagull.
After breakfast Arturo asked me if I would like to see the light. I said I would love to. I reached for Hollie but Anna had him cradled in her lap and pleaded with me to leave him behind. Okay, I thought. “Be good, Hollie,” I said. But he ignored me.
I followed Arturo up the spiralling staircase of the lighthouse tower. The steps went up and up and up! It was hard to believe that the tiny light I had seen from so far away was sitting on top of such a tall tower. I was out of breath by the time we reached the top but Arturo wasn’t even breathing hard. Being a lighthouse keeper was really good for your health!
When we came out at the top we entered a room with windows all around. The view was amazing. I could see the whole of the island and far out to sea in all directions. Arturo slapped the giant prism that reflected the light and told me proudly that they didn’t make lights
like this anymore. I asked him if he liked being a lighthouse keeper. He took a deep breath and said it was the best job in the world. Look how far you can see on a clear day, he said, and pointed out to sea. I looked. Then he pointed in another direction and told me to look there. So I did. After fifteen minutes or so I thought we might go back down to the house but Arturo was content to stay where he was. I leaned against the window and stared down to where the sub was moored, though I couldn’t see it. I did see a few seagulls but couldn’t tell if Seaweed was one of them. I wondered, would Portuguese seagulls squawk in Portuguese?
After half an hour I had had enough of staring at the ocean from such a height. It was a beautiful view, sure enough, but it was pretty much all the same. Yet Arturo never seemed to tire of it. “Look over there,” he said. And I looked, but didn’t see anything different. After an hour I was starting to think that being a lighthouse keeper was maybe the most boring job in the world.
Nicola rescued me. She had climbed the steps and appeared suddenly without a sound. She looked like an angel in a gothic costume. She said a few words quietly to Arturo. He responded with strong, forceful words, as if he were reprimanding her, then broke into a big smile and kissed her on the forehead. Nicola surprised me by taking me by the hand and leading me down the steps. After half a dozen steps or so, I pulled my hand free. I wasn’t going to walk all the way down the lighthouse steps with my hand in a girl’s.
When we came into the house, Anna was sitting on a sofa with Hollie, brushing his short, bristly hair lovingly. Hollie continued to ignore me. He was already spoiled. Nicola led me outside and onto the path towards the cliff. I followed obediently. From her gestures I gathered that she wanted to see my submarine. That meant another steep climb all the way down and back up the cliff. Holy smokes! But I went obediently.
I didn’t know if Nicola could swim or not and so I was very careful leading her to the sub. I had moored it between two sections of rock and tied it in three places to keep it from scraping. This time I took her hand firmly as we climbed from the rock to the sub, jumping onto the hull. She didn’t seem the least bit afraid. It was pretty weird to bring a girl to my sub.
