Bear Grylls (53 page)

‘Reduce it to what?’

‘Eight knots.’

‘Eight knots?’

‘Yeah, I know it’s crazy, but it’s our only choice.’

It didn’t take me long to work out the consequences of slowing to 8 knots. It would mean that from this point it would take us another thirty-six hours to reach Greenland instead of the
twenty hours we were expecting. We would be off the planing speed and the boat would be very vulnerable, completely at the mercy of the sea. We would hardly have the speed to push through these big
head seas. Everyone was freezing cold and soaking wet, and I knew this would now take our struggle up to a new level. I wasn’t sure we could cope with a further thirty-six hours like
this.

But we had no option.

‘If we do this, will we make Greenland?’ I asked.

‘Touch and go . . . but if the seas die down a bit, well, then we should make it . . . just,’ he replied.

‘OK, do it.’

I turned and gazed across the restless grey ocean, trying to keep calm. We had been confronted by a major problem, and we had taken prompt, decisive action, but I was still deeply worried.

The prospect of aborting the expedition because we ran out of fuel haunted me. It would not go down as a very glamorous failure. It would be a stark, brutal waste of two years’ planning;
gone – just like that.

The bottom line was this: we needed a break in the weather. Given some decent conditions, we would almost certainly get to Greenland. However, if the winds and the head seas remained as strong
as they were, there would probably be nothing we could do to avoid calling the rescue services.

We needed help.

Not for the first time, I tried to pray. Truly pray.

Anyone looking out of the window of a jumbo jet flying overhead would never even see us down here. We were so small and insignificant in this unforgiving sea. We were effectively invisible.
Tiny. Lost in a sea of white horses.

‘Please, God,’ I prayed, eyes closed, ‘I know it is asking for quite a big one, but please make these seas go calm.’

I was waiting, eyes squeezed shut. A few moments passed – as long as I dared – before I slowly opened my eyes, looking for the miracle; but there was none.

I wondered how many times through the centuries God must have heard this same prayer from men fighting for their lives at sea. Thousands. I knew this. But I prayed again.

Massive amounts of water were still pouring over the boat. We were being drenched by the spray, and the RIB was really labouring against the giant waves. The engine would peak, and then seem to
stall as the boat was suspended in mid-air as it dropped off the back of a steep wave. We would all cling on, motionless, until we landed, often on our side, with a crash. Then, instantly, the
engine would pick up revs again. Its computer system would be carefully monitoring the impact and revs. I had no idea how the hell it was still working but it was, and slowly we were edging towards
Greenland.

Most of us had not eaten anything for twenty-four hours, partly because we were feeling so sick but also because it was impossible to eat when the boat was being thrown around so violently. Andy
said it was like trying to eat while sitting on a fairground rollercoaster ride. Just the thought of cold, salt water-soaked Lancashire hotpot and baked beans made me retch. We just accepted the
reality that in a storm, eating anything more than the odd flapjack was almost impossible.

Drinking was just as hard, but more important. No matter how bad we were feeling, we had to drink. Charlie was sick again over the side of the boat. Then he laboured over to the jerry can to
refill his water bottle to drink. It was a horrible task.

I squeezed into the sardine tin, so tight against Mick that I could feel the zip on his dry-suit back pressing against me. I put the Dictaphone’s watertight pouch to my mouth . . .

We were approaching the end of our second day on the Labrador Sea, and the North Atlantic was doing what the North Atlantic does best. Creating chaos. Andy understood the seriousness of the
situation. ‘I’m not a very religious person,’ he would recall later, ‘but I lay in the sardine tin that night and prayed. I prayed that my late dad would help us with the
weather. I might not be a huge believer in God, but I believed in my dad, and I knew we needed help from somewhere.’

As dusk approached, we checked all the gauges again and ran through the calculations. We were burning only 70 litres of fuel per hour, compared to 90 litres per hour earlier, and we had only
lost one knot of speed. That was encouraging, but reaching Greenland was still going to be touch and go.

Everyone knew the plain facts. If the sea died down a bit we stood a real chance of making it. But in our heart of hearts we all knew that if the weather conditions did not improve, we would
almost certainly have no chance of getting there. Now, forty hours into the storm, and still with no sign of reprieve, everyone sensed that rescue was beginning to look like the most likely
outcome. We were powerless to do anything more.

We simply weren’t getting any breaks in these conditions. The seas were still running wild and huge.

The physical battering was taking its toll. Every twenty minutes or so we all made a point of looking around the boat, checking how the person next to us was coping. I had started to suspect
that all of us, including me, were suffering from the early stages of hypothermia. Our reactions were more sluggish than usual, and it felt impossible to concentrate on anything. We were drained
and we were cold. Even the most straightforward tasks – whether it was checking the fuel gauges, tying a knot or just having a pee – now took on the dimensions of a major
undertaking.

But I needed to pee. I tried to stave it off. To perform even this simple task was a nightmare. I tried to block it in my mind. Ten minutes later, I knew I had to go. I clambered out of the
sardine tin and tried to steady myself against the console.

The drill normally was to go to the stern of the RIB, harness on so that you felt confident enough to use both hands to undo the dry-suit zip, and then pee. But in these conditions, to move even
that far around the boat was dangerous and unnecessary. I wedged myself between the console side and the sardine tin and started to fumble with my dry-suit zip.

A wave crashed over the back of me and I frantically grabbed the edge of the console. I steadied myself again and tried to hold on with one hand and undo my fly with the other. It was
impossible. In desperation, I realized there was only one way to pee in these conditions: kneeling down.

I crouched down on the floor and using my elbows as a brace, I found I could hold myself steady against the violent motion of the waves. I undid the zip and peed on the floor. Another wave
poured over and washed it away in seconds. I spat the salt water from my mouth and clambered back alongside Nige.

To do ‘number twos’ in this sort of condition just wouldn’t happen. It would be lethal. Most of us managed to crap in calm seas, hanging inelegantly off the back of the jet
platform, but in this sort of sea it was unthinkable. Somehow our mindset and the adrenalin ensured we never needed to go when it was rough. I guess we weren’t eating much, which helped. But
looking back, it is strange how we managed to last out for days at a time.

Andy was helming now, but he was drowsy and veering wildly off his course. His head was drooping and he was struggling, although he was only twenty-five minutes into his shift. His concentration
had gone and the waves that were smashing into the side of the RIB were hardly even drawing his attention. He was going down with exhaustion. To his credit, he recognized this. He turned to Charlie
and asked him to take over. He couldn’t focus his eyes. The chart plotter had become a blur to him. He needed Charlie to help him this time.

This kind of gesture takes real courage, but it was what I had wanted from the team all along: an honesty, a humanity, a willingness to be vulnerable and draw on our strengths together. That was
what made us stronger. Collectively, we were always going to be better than when we were on our own.

I had no doubt that Charlie himself would need Andy’s help sooner or later, but for now it was Andy’s turn to need that help. They swapped helm and the boat carried on into the
waves.

But all our bodies were slowing down, and I for one was shivering. I had seen hypothermia among climbers high on Everest, and I knew that there was not much we could do. We just needed that
break in the weather.

But that wasn’t happening, and with every minute that passed, we seemed to be drawing nearer and nearer to the moment I had been dreading, the moment when we called for help. It would be
my decision, and a terrible one to make.

‘We shouldn’t leave it too late,’ Mick told me sensibly at one stage. ‘I mean, if this is the situation, well, there’s no point waiting until we have run out of
fuel before we put out a Mayday. We don’t want to be floating around for a day with no power. We can at least put them on standby and let them know our position.’

He was right. It was logical.

It was just that I didn’t want to face it.

‘OK,’ I said, relenting in the face of common sense. ‘I’m going to call Chloë and just let her know what’s happening.’

Mick nodded. ‘She does need to be informed,’ he affirmed. ‘It gives us a backup if we do run out of fuel.’

I agreed. ‘Slow the boat right down, will you, Nige?’ I asked.

Whenever we wanted to use the SAT phone, we had to reduce our speed to a knot or two. Then one of us was able to crawl on hands and knees into the tiny cramped console, under the helm position,
in order to dial. This space was jammed with spares, food and supplies; it was dark and stank of leaking diesel. It was a miserable place on land, in a big sea it was hell. Idling along at just 1
knot keeping the boat head to sea made her loll about awkwardly. Most of us would start feeling sick. These calls needed to be made as quickly as possible.

I crawled inside on all-fours, banging my head on the metal hatch. I cursed. Nige swung his feet out of the way to let me crawl past. I took off my diving gloves. My hands were shaking as I
pulled out the SAT phone and began to unwrap it from its plastic bag. I fumbled to attach the charger, then the antenna wire. Time was ticking on. I could hear my own breathing – it was
nervous and rapid. I could also hear Charlie being sick again. More than any of us, he hated having to stop the boat.

I carefully dialled Chloë’s number in London, holding the phone a few inches from my soaking head in an effort to keep it dry. This phone was our lifeline, and needed to be kept out
of the water at all costs. I waited.

Nothing. No dial tone.

Lying half in and half out of this tiny hatch, desperately trying to stop my head banging on the metal rails on the console roof inches above me, I dialled again. Still nothing.

‘Bloody work,’ I cursed at the phone.

Finally, on the fourth try, I heard a telephone ringing far away in London, in a different world, a warm and comfortable place where all was safe and dry and OK, a world away from here.

‘Hello, Chloë?’

‘Hi, Bear, how are you?’ she replied, bright and breezy.

‘Get a pen and paper,’ I told her. ‘We’re in trouble.’

It was around eight in the evening in London, and Chloë seemed to be in a restaurant somewhere. I could hear noises behind her. She was back in seconds. ‘Go for it,’ she
said.

‘Mick, I need our lat and longs,’ I screamed to him. He would be able to read these off the plotter.

‘Four-ah, two-ah, seven-ah.’ Mick was shouting them in his loudest, most clipped voice. It made me smile. This sure had his concentration; Mick didn’t want any errors here. I
relayed the numbers on, shouting them out above the clamour of the wind. Chloë repeated them correctly. Then I told her we were running critically low on fuel.

‘We’ve got about 1,200 litres of fuel left,’ I shouted down the phone. ‘We reckon that should last us for eighteen hours, and get us maybe 140 miles closer. Right now, we
are 195 miles from Greenland in terrible conditions.’

‘OK, I’ve got that,’ Chloë said. Her tone of voice had changed. She knew it was serious.

‘One more thing,’ I added. ‘Please call Captain Pennefather and tell him what’s happening. We’re OK, and will call again when we reckon we have two hours’
running time left.’

I replaced the SAT phone and wriggled back out of the hatch, trying to yank my gloves back on. Andy revved the engine, and we started to move again. We struggled on, the RIB crawling up and over
the waves at a pathetic 9 knots.

Chloë was aware
that Willie Pennefather was in Scotland, where, among other things, he was sorting out various aspects of our scheduled return to John
O’Groats. She eventually tracked him down to Edinburgh.

Willie recalls: