Bear Grylls (50 page)

With hindsight, it might have been a good thing that it was me who made the first mistake of the expedition. It was inevitable that there were going to be mistakes – it was only natural
– but nobody wanted to be the first.

Maybe the fact that it was me, as leader, who had made the first cock-up took the pressure off the others, but I felt I had let them down a little. I remember my late father saying that if you
want a good team, then pick people who are better than you. Most people do the opposite. It makes them feel better. But I had picked people who were better than me.

It was always our great strength.

It was with huge relief that we eventually turned and watched the Belle Isle Strait fade into the darkness behind.

The rest of the night wore on and just before dawn the mist lifted to reveal the black outline of the Labrador coast away to our left. The wind was biting and dramatically colder now, but we
knew we had survived our first test.

‘Wow, look at that!’ Mick shouted suddenly.

I turned around to see an iceberg, which must have been the size of Buckingham Palace, half a mile away on the port side. It was incredible: huge, cold and grey. The waves rolled past it
furiously.

We stared in disbelief. If we had collided with that during the night, there would only have been one survivor, and it would not have been us. Thank God, the fog was clearing.

‘This is too early to be seeing ice,’ I thought to myself. We had been told we wouldn’t see ice until we were off the coast of Greenland. Seeing icebergs this far south was not
a good sign. But I knew what I was seeing here off the port side. What worried me most though was what else we had been told that was wrong.

We had read that what you see of an iceberg represents no more than 6 per cent of its total mass; based on that fact, this berg was enormous. It seemed to belong here. In our small, yellow-tubed
boat, I felt we didn’t. We were trespassing, and we were alone. I felt as though the iceberg was looking at us, angry to be disturbed in its territory.

Some experts had warned us that icebergs might not show up on our radar screens, but this wasn’t generally the case. In fact, the Canadian coastguards place radar reflectors on the large
ones, and this gave us some reassurance – though not much.

The following seas continued to drive us on towards our destination, and we reckoned we would reach St Mary’s harbour, on the Labrador coast, at around 6.30 a.m., approximately three hours
ahead of schedule.

Andy was due to helm at five o’clock but he had just got off to sleep and, as a small gesture of apology for getting him up in the middle of the night when the engine stopped, I suggested
I would do some of his shift. We were all tired.

By dawn, and only three miles from shore, we suddenly felt a rush of warm air on our faces. It was a welcome change from the cold winds that had been blowing all night, and with this wind came a
rich aroma of heather. Labrador looked and smelled like the wilds of Scotland and, as we carefully wound our way from Battle Harbour down the mouth of the remote estuary to the port of St
Mary’s, all five of us were buzzing.

The land on either side of this narrow inlet was barren and untamed, but eventually we turned a corner and found a small harbour full of fishing boats, surrounded by a cluster of corrugated-iron
buildings. It was early morning, but people were already at work on the one concrete quay, preparing thousands of freshly caught crabs.

Our early arrival had caught the local reception party by surprise, and we pulled alongside an old wooden pier to wait. We began to unwind and enjoy the quiet of the moment as we waited for the
local contact to arrive and guide us to where we were to moor. We were so pleased to be here, safe and with some time to prepare for the first of our real tests ahead: the Labrador Sea.

We dug out the bottle of Mumm champagne we had brought to mark our first sighting of an iceberg and removed it from its bubble wrap. The cork flew off and the five of us drank contentedly.

However, within minutes, we were being bitten to shreds by giant mosquitoes and blood was pouring down Charlie’s neck.

‘Get the cigarettes out, quick,’ he shouted, slapping his forehead frantically. ‘That’ll keep them away.’

It didn’t.

Before long, each of us was covered in huge bites that oozed blood. They itched like hell. None of us had seen mosquitoes this big, and Nige said they obviously had to be this huge to survive so
far north – they would need to be well insulated. Well, after such a feast of English blood, they would certainly be that all right.

As we scurried around, each clutching four cigarettes in both hands in a vain attempt to dispel the insects, we heard a voice behind us.

‘Welcome! We weren’t expecting you until half past nine.’ The booming voice belonged to Alton Rumbolt, mayor of St Mary’s.

‘How do you do?’ I replied, putting out my hand. ‘Yes, we had following seas, and we’ve made good time.’

‘OK, well, as soon as you are all sorted out, I will show you to where you are staying.’

Alton led us along a dirt track up the hill towards the harbour buildings, and almost everybody stopped to greet us as we walked by. They all seemed to know what we were doing, and they all
seemed eager to help.

‘Enjoy your stay in St Mary’s,’ said one of the fishermen.

‘Thanks,’ Nige replied.

We walked on.

Alton Rumbolt noted, ‘That was Robert Rumbolt.’

‘I see,’ Nige said innocently. ‘Is he your brother?’

‘No . . . just a relative.’

It soon became clear that the majority of the population of St Mary’s, which did not exceed 250 in total, was also named Rumbolt. And when it came to naming shops or businesses, it seemed
they didn’t like to venture too far from the path of convention: ‘Rumbolt General Stores’; ‘Rumbolt Fishing’; ‘Rumbolt Supplies’.

Nige persevered: ‘Is that your shop over there, Alton?’

‘Nope,’ Alton replied, ‘that’s my cousin’s.’

‘What about Rumbolt Repairs?’

By this stage, Nige was finding everything quite amusing. He had, after all, been at sea for a while.

‘Not mine,’ Alton replied. ‘That’s my second cousin’s.’

We reached our rooms and crashed. Everyone was drained. Nobody had got much sleep in the sardine tin during the past two nights. It’s not easy to fall asleep beside a roaring engine,
bracing yourself every time a wave hits the boat. Sleep only tends to come when you are so exhausted that you physically can’t stay awake. As Andy would tell people when asked how we slept,
‘You can sleep anywhere if you’re tired enough.’

In due course, Mick and I headed back down to the boat. We clambered inside the cubby, where Andy’s spares and our supplies were stowed during passage, and dialled home on the SAT phone.
We needed to speak first to Chloë, to update her on our progress, and then to Mike Town for an updated forecast.

More than ever, we were determined to get this next judgement exactly right. The next leg, across the infamous Labrador Sea to Greenland, would be one of the toughest of the entire expedition,
and we didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks. The passage through the Belle Isle Strait had been rougher than we’d expected and that had taught us a vital lesson. The forecast might
say the outlook is fine, but the reality for a small boat in unpredictable seas can be very different. We weren’t a big cruise liner or a frigate. We were effectively a rugged, inshore
speedboat, and as far as forecasts were concerned, this was worth remembering.

Mike Town was not overly optimistic about the prospects.

‘There’s a north-westerly wind of around Force Four to Five,’ he said, ‘and you’ll be heading north-east, so that will probably give you a beam sea for the
crossing.’

‘That’s not ideal but it’s manageable,’ I said.

We checked a couple of websites, and they confirmed the likely direction of the wind. The data all forecast north-westerlies, and, for us, that meant beam seas.

Our kind of boat was most vulnerable in a beam sea. With the waves rolling across us, we have little lateral stability compared with either a head-on or following sea. I didn’t like
this.

Mike added cautiously, ‘It looks as if the winds are going to get stronger, not weaker, after about forty-eight hours. But if you do decide to wait, you could be in St Mary’s for a
while.’

It made the decision much more difficult. Did we sit and wait, or risk it, getting most of the 700-mile crossing completed before the bad weather really kicked in?

I discussed this with Mick. He agreed we didn’t want to get stuck, but we also had to be safe.

In the end, we decided we would prepare the boat to leave the following day, but we would not make a final decision until we had checked the weather forecast again in the morning. That kept our
options open. It also meant we would be ready if we did decide to try to beat the bad weather that was coming straight down from the Arctic through the Labrador Sea.

Throughout the afternoon as Andy, now rested, pottered around the boat, doing various maintenance tasks, I mulled over the issues. Mick and I were almost certain we should get a good
night’s sleep and leave at first light in the morning. The forecast was not that bad, and my instinct was to keep moving.

It would be great to stay in St Mary’s a bit longer and spend time with the people there, but we all knew we needed to be well across the worst of the Labrador Sea before the strong winds
reached our latitude. Conditions of Force Four to Five over the next two days were a reasonable option.

I felt confident we would be OK. My only concern was that this was such a crucial leg to get right, and I knew there would be no room for error once we were 400 miles offshore. It would be too
late. I had never been anything like that far from land before. The furthest I had been was about 50 miles and even that had felt very exposed. I reached for the Dictaphone, and spoke . . .

Later on I spoke to Chloë again on the SAT phone. She had received a phone call from Mary, Mick’s girlfriend. It was bad news. Mary’s father had suddenly passed away. It had
happened the hour we had left Halifax. I found Mick prepping his kit and told him to telephone Mary. I warned him it wasn’t good news. Mick was devastated, but also torn. Torn between the
team and wishing he could be there for Mary at this awful time.

Mary broke down and cried. Her father had just fallen from the cliff of life, and Mick, her boyfriend, was now treading precariously near the edge. It all became too much for her later that day
when she found an envelope. It was Mick’s will, which he had written the day before he left. This was the final straw.

Mick and I spoke for a while, partly about Mary, partly about what to do now. We were trying to rationalize everything, but soon we were interrupted by a familiar voice.

‘So we’re all looking forward to seeing you tonight.’

It was Mayor Rumbolt again, extending the warm hand of hospitality, inviting us to an occasion at the town hall where, it seemed, we were to be the guests of honour.

‘We would like to initiate you all as honorary Labradoreans,’ he grinned. That sounded worrying. I had done initiations in the army, and they were rarely good news. Ever.

‘Um . . . yep, that would be a pleasure,’ I said.

The words tumbled out. We had all planned on an early night but it would have been ungracious to turn him down.

‘We’ll go along for a short time, show our faces and present the mayor with a decent bottle of whisky as a thanks for all he has done, and then bed,’ I told the others.

As it was, they were all much keener to go than me. ‘It’ll be fun,’ Charlie added.

So we went.

Everybody was in high spirits as we approached the house where we had been asked to meet before going on to what Alton cheerfully referred to as the ‘town hall’. The guys were now in
the frame of mind to celebrate our progress so far.

‘They’ve got pretty good roads for such a small place,’ Nige noted as we walked along.

‘I know,’ Charlie added, ‘especially when you think they only go round the town and that’s it. They don’t actually lead anywhere. There is no road from here to
Toronto, or anywhere for that matter. The only way out of here is by plane or sea.’

We arrived at the house, full of festive fishermen, and found the beer flowing fast. The local people could not have been more friendly, and they made us feel quite proud when they said they
could hardly believe we had travelled up from Nova Scotia in our small, yellow 32-foot rigid inflatable boat.

‘You must go easy from now on, mind,’ said another Rumbolt. ‘You are heading into difficult waters from here on.’

Another asked, ‘When are you leaving?’

I replied that we would probably leave the following day, and this remark provoked a chorus of amazement.

‘You can’t do that. It’s northerly winds,’ the fishermen said. ‘We never go out in northerlies.’

‘Really?’ Andy asked.

‘No, never.’

The locals were absolutely adamant, and I sensed eyes glancing in my direction.

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘The northerlies are the vicious ones,’ they said. ‘They blow onshore and come straight from the Arctic. They’re cold and dangerous. It’s a rule in our fleet. When
the wind is a northerly, we wait for the winds to change.’

It made sense, but I tried to rationalize the situation.

First, I told myself, the fishermen were dealing with conditions maybe 50 miles, maximum 100 miles, offshore. We had to think bigger. We were trying to get it right for over 700 miles straight
across this ocean. That made the decision a different call altogether. We had to see the whole picture.