Ghosts of the Pacific (3 page)

When I reached the sub I only had time to climb up, tie
the kayak to a handle, open the hatch, throw the oar in and
jump in. The bear was only a couple of minutes behind. I
shut the hatch but couldn't leave yet because I didn't have
time to deflate the kayak, and didn't want to leave it behind.
I hoped the bear wouldn't rip it apart.

Inside, I caught my breath and waited. Sure enough, the
bear climbed onto the hull. Man, was it ever heavy! It pulled
the stern down. I ran to the periscope and turned it to look
at the bear. It was huge! It was three times as big as the bears
back home in Newfoundland.

I decided to dive a few feet and see if it would leave. I
peeled off the wetsuit, watched and waited. The bear swam
around in circles for a couple of minutes then headed towards shore. I felt kind of sorry for it now and wished I had
something to give it to eat. But what do you feed a polar
bear?

Once the bear was on shore I surfaced and opened the
hatch. The kayak was okay. I deflated it, repacked it, hung up
the wetsuit, started the engine and headed north. I wasn't
feeling restless anymore.

THE HUDSON STRAIT
was miserable. All it did was rain. The
temperature hovered around zero, sometimes a degree
above, sometimes a degree below. The rain came as freezing
rain and just rain. But the farther north we sailed, the lower
the temperature dropped. Then the freezing rain started
sticking to the sub. I kept wiping it off, but every time I came
up it was back so I gave up after a while. The sub was starting to look like an igloo.

It wasn't just that it was cold, and it wasn't just that the
freezing rain wouldn't stop; it was also that the farther north
we went, the less darkness there was, until there was almost
none. With no break from daylight I couldn't remember if it
was morning, afternoon or night. I was starting to think that
the Arctic could drive you crazy.

And then we hit our first chunk of ice.

It was a growler. It never showed up on radar and I never
saw it from the portal. We were sailing twelve knots when we
struck it dead on. It wasn't that big but it made a heck of a
noise and shook everything loose that wasn't tied down. The
desalinator went flying, hit the bicycle seat, spun around a
few times in the air and landed just a couple of inches in
front of Hollie, who saw it coming and ducked. Seaweed
went up in the air with a burst of feathers. The force of impact threw me backwards and I banged my mouth against
the periscope, putting a tooth through my lip. I rushed to
the controls, shut off the engine, checked to see that the
crew was okay and climbed the portal to take a look. In the
freezing rain I couldn't see anything. But it had to be there.
And I wanted to see it so I turned the engine back on, swung
around and went back slowly. Sure enough, there it was,
floating a couple of inches beneath the surface like a sea
mine. What a menace!

We continued sailing but I reduced our speed to ten
knots, climbed the portal and tried to see growlers through
the freezing rain. That was pretty much impossible. We hit
another one about fifteen minutes later and I never even saw
it until it scraped along the starboard side. It wasn't a direct
hit but it threw me sideways against the hatch. I heard commotion inside.

“You okay, Hollie?”

He appeared at the bottom of the ladder and looked up.
Yup, he was okay. I knew that Seaweed would be. Seagulls
have lightning-fast reflexes. They might look clumsy but
they're not.

So, I dropped our speed to eight knots. That was so slow
I could barely stand it, but I couldn't keep running into
growlers. We struck three more before entering the Foxe
Channel, but those hits weren't so bad. Ziegfried was right:
dropping our speed reduced the force of impact a lot. Still,
I hated hitting them, even the small ones. It was like getting
hit in the head with a snowball. This was the first time I seriously considered turning around and going back. It was
going to take forever to sail through the passage like this.
The thought of speeding through the warmer waters of the
Caribbean was so appealing. But I had to remember Sheba's
warning: if I went south they would take my sub away from
me. Rats. I had to keep going. To ignore Sheba's prediction
would be to invite disaster.

In the Foxe Channel there were bigger chunks of ice. They
were called bergy bits. They stuck out of the water like miniature icebergs and showed up on radar most of the time,
though not always. But the freezing rain finally stopped and
the sun began to shine. That was a huge improvement. Now
I could see again. There was ice everywhere! Some of it
showed on radar and some didn't. I had to watch all the time
and that was exhausting! The more tired I was, the more I
needed to sleep, which slowed us down even more. A bigger
ship would have just pushed all of this ice out of the way.

The sun grew brighter until it became blinding. It made
the ice sparkle like jewels. That was very pretty, but too
bright to stare at. I had to put on sunglasses. I wished I had
some for Hollie too. Whenever he was in the portal his eyes
squinted into thin slits as he sniffed at the air. And sometimes he turned away, dropped his head onto my arm and
shut his eyes.

At some point we crossed the Arctic Circle. I didn't know
when exactly, but it sits at 66.5622 degrees latitude, and we
passed that somewhere in our second week. Nothing
changed much. But now we had to get out of the sub because
we were going stir-crazy from being stuck inside so long.

I decided to head for Prince Charles Island since we were
passing close by. My Arctic guidebook said that the island
was about the size of Anticosti Island but was uninhabited.
It had lots of birds. I wondered if it had lots of polar bears.
Probably.

The island was flat and grey, yet it reminded me a little of
North Africa, which we had seen the year before. That was
weird because North Africa was hot and had gold-coloured
sand and red mountains, and the Mediterranean Sea was
light green and blue, and you could see through it. Prince
Charles Island had a tiny bit of green mixed in with a whole
bunch of grey. As we sailed closer I saw a light sprinkling of
snow too. But there were no mountains or sand, and the sea
was almost black. I supposed what reminded me of North
Africa was that there were no telephone lines, poles, towns,
farms or people. That's what North Africa had looked like to
me where we first landed. Or maybe it wasn't those similarities at all, but just that that's where I was wishing we were
instead.

I came in as close as possible, dropped anchor in ten feet
and inflated the dinghy. We were still a hundred feet from
shore, which was an important detail in case we fell out of
the dinghy. It had never happened before, but here it
mustn't
happen. I couldn't be in the water for more than one minute, and the less time the better. But I was not going to spend
half an hour putting on the wetsuit for such a short paddle.
Besides, I couldn't run around on the beach with it on.

Hollie was so excited I had to keep him from jumping
into the water and swimming to shore. Boy, would he have
been in for a surprise. “No, Hollie! Sit! Stay!”

He looked at me impatiently. But he knew when I sensed
danger and he imitated my caution, except for his little tail
wagging like a windshield wiper on high.

We climbed into the dinghy and paddled to shore. It was
cold, but not too cold, because there was no freezing rain
and the wind had died. I wore my winter parka anyway as a
precaution. I dropped the binoculars into one of the pockets.
Seaweed was already standing on the pebbled beach looking
bored. The beach was barren. Not even a scrap of food for a
seagull. Seaweed wasn't impressed. But Hollie and I were. As
soon as I pulled the dinghy onto the beach and slipped out
of my parka we both jumped out and took off running.
What a wonderful feeling!

The ground was noisy beneath our feet. There was frost
between the pebbles that crunched with every step. Even
Hollie's paws made crunching sounds. He ran around and
around in circles as if he had never run before. Then we
both ran down the beach until I was completely out of breath.
I stopped. I could see my breath rising into the cold air.
Everything was so quiet. I closed my eyes and listened. Except for my breathing, and Hollie's panting, there was no
sound. Then, I heard the very soft sound of the wind. I
opened my eyes and looked around three hundred and sixty
degrees. What a bleak and barren place. It was hard to imagine this was an island the size of Anticosti Island, and there
was not a single soul on it, except us.

We started back. Hollie found a stick and carried it
proudly in his mouth. It was probably the only stick on the
island. Growlers and bergy bits drifted by slowly in the current beside us. The ice sparkled in the sun. It showed odd
colours, such as green, orange, blue and purple. Then, in the
far distance I saw red. But it wasn't a sparkling red. I
stopped. That wasn't ice; that was a ship.

We ran all the way back to the dinghy and I grabbed the
binoculars. It was the coastguard. What would they do if
they saw us? Would they keep going or investigate?

It was hard to tell if they were slowing down. They seemed
to be. Surely they wouldn't stop? More likely they would
lower a small boat and investigate with that. If I saw a small
boat on the water we had to skedaddle.

Sure enough, a motorized dinghy appeared at the stern of
the ship. It was carrying three people in bright orange survival suits. They were coming for us.

“We have to go!” I yelled.

I grabbed Hollie, pushed the dinghy into the water and
jumped in. But Hollie started to whine. He didn't want to
go. I didn't blame him, but we had to. I turned to look at the
approaching boat. They were zigzagging through the ice.
When I turned back, Hollie was standing on the edge of the
dinghy ready to jump. “Hollie! Don't!”

It was too late. He jumped out of the dinghy and starting
swimming for shore, just a few feet away. I made a desperate
attempt to reach him, lost my balance and fell in the water.

It was only three or four feet deep but I fell right under
and became completely soaked. It was so cold! I was shocked.
I stood up and looked for Hollie. He was standing at the
water's edge, soaking wet. He had gone back for his stick.
“Come here!” I yelled.

I went towards him. He backed up. “Come on! We have to
go!”

When I stepped out of the water he came to me. I picked
him up. Then I had to wade into the water up to my chest to
reach the dinghy. I had been wet for at least thirty seconds
already. I couldn't believe what a powerful grip the cold had
and how quickly the pain spread all over my body. My skin
felt as if it were burning. It was extremely painful. I reached
the dinghy, put Hollie in it and climbed in. That was hard to
do because my limbs were so stiff. I could not believe how
quickly the cold was immobilizing me. I picked up the paddle and paddled the short distance to the sub. The coastguard dingy was just minutes away. I saw somebody wave
but couldn't wave back. I was shivering too much. I had to
get inside and get warm.

I couldn't deflate the dinghy. Should I just leave it behind,
I wondered? I couldn't think. I was too cold to concentrate.
Get inside, I told myself. Get inside and get warm, then you
will know what to do.

I pulled the dinghy rope through a handle on the portal
but couldn't tie it. I got the hatch open, carried Hollie inside
and shut it. I was so cold now that my hands were shaking
like crazy. They would be here any second, what should I do?
I couldn't dive. It was too shallow. I turned on the engine but
couldn't seem to figure out which way to steer. If I moved
towards shore we would get stuck on the beach. That would
be a disaster. “Concentrate!” I yelled to myself.

I grabbed hold of the periscope, took a look, then put the
sub in reverse. A quick peek at the sonar screen told me the
bottom was now fifteen feet, now twenty, now twenty-five. I
let a little water into the tanks. We didn't need to go down
far. Through the periscope I saw the coastguard dinghy right
outside. I was still shivering like crazy but I sat down in front
of the sonar screen, turned the sub around and headed out
to deeper water.

I peeled off my freezing clothes, pulled on dry ones and
wrapped myself in a blanket. Hollie curled up on his blanket
with his new stick and started licking his fur. I put the kettle
on. A cup of hot chocolate would go a long way towards
warming me up.

The coastguard ship was sailing south. I went out and
stopped a quarter of a mile behind her and watched through
the periscope as the motorized dinghy returned. They were
towing my dinghy! Rats! I wanted it back. I was planning to
go back for it after they left. Now I would have to ask them
for it. Would they give it to me?

I surfaced and motored closer. I knew they couldn't catch
me here. They would know that too. They would need more
vessels, a helicopter or airplane and reliable sonar conditions, none of which they had. That made me more confident.

Once they saw me approaching, they turned and came
towards me in their dinghy. I put my parka on. I was still
shivering. I climbed the portal and opened the hatch. Seaweed spotted us, flew down and landed on the hull. “Hey,
Seaweed.”

The officers in the dinghy waved. This time I waved back.
Then one of them spoke through a megaphone. “Are you a
Canadian vessel?”