by Philip Roy
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.
Chapter 4
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 barre
n 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?”
I nodded my head and yelled back. “Yes.”
“Are you the Submarine Outlaw from Newfoundland?”
I nodded again. “Yes.”
“Can we board your vessel and inspect it?”
“No.”
They didn’t like that. They didn’t respond for a while. Probably they were discussing what to do next. Legally, they didn’t have to ask for permission to inspect my sub because we were in Canadian waters. But they couldn’t inspect us if we went underwater, and they knew that, and so they were asking politely. “We are requesting permission to inspect your vessel.”
I shook my head. “Sorry.”
They paused again. “It is against the law to refuse us access to inspect your vessel. Do you understand that you are breaking the law?”
“Yes.”
There was a longer pause. And then: “Are you carrying weapons of any kind?”
“No.”
“Are you carrying drugs or alcohol?”
“No.”
“Do you want your dinghy back?”
I nodded. “Yes, please.”
“We will give you back your dinghy if you will let us inspect your vessel.”
I knew they were going to say that. Shoot! I shook my head. There was no way they were getting inside my sub. If they did they could simply say that they had changed their minds, and Hollie, Seaweed and I would be sitting in a cabin on board their ship and our exploring days would be over. I wasn’t going to risk that for a rubber dinghy. “No.”
They knew I meant it. Then, they did something that really surprised me. They untied the dinghy and let it drift so that I could catch it, then returned to their ship. They raised the megaphone one last time: “Be careful, Submarine Outlaw. Don’t make us come searching for you.”
I waved back. “I won’t. Thank you!”
That was cool. I would remember them for that.
Chapter 5
THERE WAS SOMETHING on the ice. From the distance it looked like a couple of bales of hay. But I knew it could not be hay in the Arctic. Besides, it was moving. When we sailed closer it turned its head and I saw what it was. A walrus!
The walrus sat on the ice like a king surveying his kingdom. He looked like an old man with enormous tusks and giant whiskers. If he were an old man you’d think he was wise and maybe fussy.
Sheba had suggested I take pictures and sell them to magazines to pay for my voyages. This seemed like a good time to start. So, I rushed inside, cut the engine, grabbed the camera and climbed the portal. We slowed to a drift. I didn’t know anything about taking pictures so I just pointed the camera and started snapping. That was easy enough. The walrus looked like he enjoyed having his picture taken.
Then I heard the sound of a small boat engine. Turning, I saw a motorboat approaching. It was carrying about a dozen people, including young kids. They were waving at me. I turned around, waved back and took their picture. Were they coming to look at the walrus? They were Inuit, probably from Igloolik, the closest community. One of the young men was wearing only a t-shirt!
They kept waving and I kept taking their picture. The closer they came, the more they waved. Then, they started to wave hysterically. Okay, that was weird. Surely they had seen lots o
f walruses before? Then I realized, oh, it’s the submarine. They had never seen a submarine before. Now I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I stay or should I go? They were friendly. I didn’t want to be rude.
Suddenly the walrus jumped off the ice and disappeared. Rats! They scared him away. Now they were screaming their heads off. What the heck was wrong with them? I turned around and froze. There was a polar bear right behind me.
The bear climbed onto the hull just as I ducked inside the portal. I didn’t even have time to pull the hatch down. And we couldn’t dive without shutting the hatch. I couldn’t flip the automatic switch either, because the bear was in the way. The motor would burn out against dead resistance.
The bear was so heavy he pulled the sub sideways. I was afraid he was going to pull us right over. But he didn’t. He stuck his nose into the portal but was too big to climb inside. I looked up. It was terrifying to see a bear so close. Hollie stood between my feet and I felt him shiver and growl but couldn’t hear him over the sound of the bear’s breathing. The bear sounded like a monster. Water dripped from his mouth and splashed us in the face. I could see only one of his eyes but we looked at each other. He didn’t look like he was trying to eat us; he just looked curious. With my heart pounding I pointed the camera and held the button down.
The bear took a couple of sniffs, then went to the bow and pushed it down, then went to the stern and pushed it down. I shut the hatch, let a little water into the tanks, sank a few feet and watched him through the periscope. I was hoping he would move to the ice and then I could take his picture again. Now that I had finally taken the camera out, I wanted to photograph everything.
He finally swam to the ice and climbed up. He was so big! Through the periscope I saw the people in the motorboat watching him. I opened the hatch again, stuck my head out and took the bear’s picture. He was sitting on the ice like a big white teddy bear. I looked at the people in the boat. The man in the t-shirt was holding a rifle. He raised it to his shoulder and aimed at the bear.