by Philip Roy
They were closing in; I had to decide. If they took the sub, my exploring days would be over, at least for several more years. That decided it for me. I shut off the sonar, dove to three hundred feet, the deepest I dared, turned ninety degrees towards Nova Scotia, climbed up on the bike and started pedalling.
Maybe I was crazy. I didn’t know what else to do. For the next half-hour I braced myself for an explosion. But it never came. Because I couldn’t turn on the sonar without letting them know exactly where we were, I couldn’t know where they were. If they did have us on sonar, which they probably did, they would know by our size and shape we were the same sub who had assisted the coastguard recently. Surely they wouldn’t sink a friendly sub?
Five hours later I was still pedalling. The coast was at least another ten hours away. I decided to rise to periscope level and take a peek. It was dark now. On the horizon, to the east, I saw the lights of a ship. Diving to a hundred feet, I shared a snack with the crew and resumed pedalling. Five hours later I rose to periscope level again. The horizon was clear. We were only an hour from shore by engine. Was it worth the risk? I surfaced and mulled over it for awhile. I was about to flip the engine switch, when I had a second thought. Most of the bad decisions I had made could have been prevented with a little caution. I climbed the portal, opened the hatch and took a good look around. There was nothing but darkness and a moon behind clouds. But as I leaned against the portal and watched the moon come free of the clouds, I saw it reflect off something on the horizon. I strained to make out what it was. Then it turned sideways and I saw its silhouette clearly. It was a ship, with its lights out! It must have been following us in, assuming quite correctly that we would take the shortest route to land. Perhaps on bicycle power they had not been able to detect us. Or perhaps they had identified us and did not want to risk sinking us. Likely they were hoping we would surface and they’d spot us. Whew! That was close. Diving once again, I continued pedalling, and pedalled all the way in. The navy must have concluded we were not a threat and were no longer worth following. I found a secluded cove, let Seaweed out, dove to seventy-five feet and went to bed completely exhausted.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Catching a glimpse of land around Port aux Basques filled me with an unexpected feeling: that I was actually from somewhere. Seaweed was a Newfoundland seagull and I was a Newfoundland sailor, and even though I intended to travel all around the world, Newfoundland would always be my home. And Hollie, well, strictly speaking, I did find him on the sea, so I suppose he was, in truth, a sea dog.
Most days now it snowed, and it had grown much colder. Cold on the sea was a lot colder than on the land. But I did not expect to run into icebergs, which we might have if we returned the way we had come. The west coast of Newfoundland was rugged, beautiful, and less populated, so I assumed we would not run into many people either, or be recognized. Boy, was that wrong!
Our first encounter took place around the tip of Cape Anguille. We were cruising along on the surface in the middle of morning, admiring the snow-covered mountains and looking for a cove to settle for the day. We had the hatch open and I was running down from time to time to check the radar and sonar. At one point we came upon a hidden cove. I was watching the sonar for a suitable spot and turned into the cove without bothering to check with the periscope. I just assumed the cove was uninhabited. It wasn’t. Down at the water was a bunch of people gathered at a wedding! We sailed into the little cove right in the middle of the ceremony! By the time I climbed the portal to take a look, I was facing about twenty-five people staring at us as if we had just come from the moon!
They were surprised but very friendly, and insisted we join their reception. I didn’t see how we could refuse. So I moored to the dock, sealed the hatch, carried Hollie over and joined the party. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Everyone took pictures of Hollie and Seaweed with the bride and groom, and they said it was the best kind of luck that we had shown up on their wedding day. We ate so much we stumbled back to the sub and slept like logs. A few days later we were on the front of the newspaper again. The picture showed the bride giving Hollie a kiss and Seaweed standing behind the groom’s head. The headline read:
SUBMARINE OUTLAW CRASHES WEDDING! HEADING NORTH!
After that, everyone knew where we were going.
Our second encounter was very different. I had become altogether too relaxed about our visibility. The coastguard didn’t seem to be anywhere on the west coast, and the only sea traffic we had encountered so far had been from small boaters. What I neglected to consider were the people with telescopes and short-wave radios. Not only were they able to communicate where we actually were, they could predict where we would be, and when. So much for stealth!
We were crossing the mouth of Bonne Bay in the early hours of morning. As usual, I was seeking a sheltered cove for the day. As we approached Lobster Cove, I heard the radar beep and saw a fishing boat heading out. No matter, I thought, and continued on our way. I planned to wave as we passed. Suddenly another boat came out, and then another. The three boats formed an arc and stopped in front of us. I slowed down. Were they hoping to meet us? I was tired and just wanted to sleep. Then the radar showed two more boats coming from shore behind us, and I got a funny feeling in my stomach. Were they trying to surround us?
As we neared the boats in the front, they narrowed the spaces between and I slowed down even more. The boats behind us came on quickly. I was confused; why would they want to surround us? The water was plenty deep; we could easily go beneath them and escape. I climbed the portal to take a look and was shocked to see them drop their nets. They were trying to catch us!
The fishing boats formed a semi-circle and tied their nets together, leaving only the side to the beach open. I stopped the sub, otherwise I would have run into them. The water was about seventy-five feet deep; their nets could easily be sitting on the bottom. I didn’t know what to do. Was this just a kind of joke? Surely they did not want to damage their nets?
I motored a little closer to shore. The boats closed in on us and the circle grew tighter. Yup, they meant business. Okay, I thought, I am not going to surrender the sub, and I am not responsible for any damage to their nets or boats. Submerging to sixty feet, I watched on the sonar as they closed the circle even tighter. I tried to imagine the wall of netting surrounding us, and then I got an idea. Turning the batteries to full power, I began to spin the sub in a circle, like a spinning top. Around and around we went, without actually changing our position. I was hoping to create a whirlpool, which would lift the nets off the seafloor far enough for us to slip underneath. The only problem was that I couldn’t know if it was working; I could only hope it was. Around and around we spun. It must have created quite a rotational force in the water. After five minutes of spinning I straightened out and headed directly towards the net. I felt for any tugging on the sub as we passed through the barricade. Nothing. Hah! We were free! A quarter of a mile out I surfaced and climbed the portal. The circle of boats had broken and they turned seaward as soon as they saw the sub. I submerged again and that was the last they ever saw of us.
After that, I didn’t take any more chances. I went back to my habit of choosing sleeping spots before the sun was up. I also avoided contact with the few boats we happened to run by. We had just one more encounter, but it was a good one.
We were passing the point at Port au Choix. It was twilight and foggy enough to hide us from shore. So I surfaced and was about to crank the engine to full speed. I just climbed the portal for a breath of fresh air first. The radar was clear but visibility was low. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something on the water. Now I saw it, and now I didn’t. In my experience, that usually meant there was something. Slowly, I steered towards the area. Sure enough, there was a dory tossing on the water. In it this time was not a dog but a boy!
He was twelve, just two years younger than I but looked a lot younger, I thought. It was growing dark and he was a mile offshore i
n a dory with nothing but two oars and a bottle of water. When he saw the sub he cried out, “Hey! Hey!”
“Hello!” I called back. “What are you doing out here? Are you crazy?”
“I just wanted to meet you,” he said.
“How long have you been out here?”
“All day.”
“All day!”
I couldn’t believe it. He must have been freezing and dead tired. I felt sorry for him.
“You’d better come in and warm up,” I said.
“Can I?”
I nodded and steered over to the dory.
“Throw me your rope and I’ll tie up your boat.”
His name was Daniel. It turned out he was growing up in a small fishing village, but, like me, didn’t want to become a fisherman. He said that ever since he first saw the sub on TV he had decided that’s what he wanted to do — build a submarine and go to sea. He was keeping a scrapbook of newspaper clippings of sightings of us. That’s how he knew we’d be passing by. He had been coming out in his dory every day for a week! When he told me that, I knew he was serious.
Daniel was shivering when he followed me inside. Hollie was delighted to have company and came right up to him and wagged his little tail. Seaweed couldn’t have cared less.
“Don’t mind him,” I said. “Seagulls are only friendly when you have food in your hand.”
Daniel stared all around as if he were in a treasure room. I could understand. I remembered how excited I was when we first started putting wood in the interior.
“Don’t you realize how dangerous it is to be out in a dory, alone and far from shore? What if you were swept away in a current?”
He didn’t answer. He just petted Hollie, who looked up at me to see if it was okay. I realized I must have sounded disapproving. Enough of that.
“Do you want some pizza?”
His face brightened.
“You have pizza here?”
“You bet! You have to be comfortable when you go to sea.”
He smiled.
“It’s nice and warm in here.”
“Here. I’ll show you how things work.”
I showed Daniel the control-panel and explained the switches and how the systems worked. I took him aft to see the engine and batteries. Then we sat and had pizza and tea. He was starving.
“I can’t believe you have a bicycle in here.”
“Sometimes it’s the only way to get around.”
“Is that how you sneaked away from the coastguard?”
“Yup. That’s how I escaped from a lot of things. But it’s really slow.”
“Can I look out the periscope?”
“Sure. But it’s foggy; you won’t see much. Why don’t we go closer to shore; you’ll see better.”
So we started the engine and motored in and took turns peering at the lights on shore. Then we untied his dory and I showed him how to submerge and how to watch the sonar. He was like a kid on Christmas. But I wondered if his parents would be worrying about him.
“Won’t they think you are lost at sea?”
“No. They don’t know where I am.”
“They don’t even know you are out on the water? All week? Don’t they care?”
“Not really.”
“They must care some?”
He stared at the floor.
“What about your teachers at school?”
“They prefer it when I’m not there, ’cause I get into so much trouble.”
After a few hours I took Daniel home. We sailed right into his cove in the fog and docked at the pier. I didn’t think anyone would see us. I promised I would write to him.
“You promise?” he said as he climbed onto the pier.
“I promise.”
He waved as we pulled away.
“Thanks for the ride!” he shouted.
“You’re welcome! Remember: the sea doesn’t care if you are sincere!”
As I watched Daniel disappear, I couldn’t help thinking how far I had come in two and a half years, and how grateful I was to Ziegfried for that journey.
Chapter Twenty-eight
It was a surprise to me that the most exciting part of my first voyage was the coming home. I wouldn’t have expected that. Nothing, not even finding the treasure, was as exciting as the thought of seeing Ziegfried again and introducing him to Hollie and Seaweed.
But coming home was not easy. A storm caught us off guard as we sailed up the Strait of Belle Isle. Once in awhile I caught a glimpse of a light on shore; otherwise, sailing around the point of the peninsula was like riding around the moon. We had to submerge often to get out of rough sailing, and more than once took shelter in a tiny cove, running the engine for hours to recharge the batteries. Once we did round the point and pass St. Anthony, the storm abated. But there were almost no lights on shore now because there were no people. The last stretch of our trip — down the east side of the Northern Peninsula — was the least populated.
We listened to the radio a lot and danced and sang. Hollie was a terrific dancer, and his singing was no worse than mine. Seaweed was a passable dancer — not too exciting — he just hopped from one foot to the other. But his singing was really awful, so we didn’t encourage him too much.
We also listened to talk shows. My favourite was a call-in show where people expressed their opinions on current issues. One day the topic was, “Should homeowners be allowed to hang clotheslines in new urban residential areas?” That was pretty boring, but people became really worked up over it. It was a good thing they weren’t all in the same room or they’d be fighting for sure.
The next day the topic was better, “Should dogs and cats be allowed to get married?”
I don’t know what Hollie thought about that, but the people who called in had very strong opinions. I wondered what Sheba would think.
The topic on the third day really caught my attention: “Should the coastguard make more of an effort to catch the Submarine Outlaw?”
When I heard that I stopped pedalling and sat down by the radio and listened.
The first caller said that the coastguard should leave me alone; that everybody had a right to do what they wanted on the sea. Nobody owns the sea, he said. I liked that answer.
The second caller disagreed. They should capture me, she said, and have a trial and decide whether or not I had done anything wrong. Yikes! I wouldn’t want her to be on the jury.
The next caller said they should definitely catch me and make an example of me; otherwise, who knows what is lurking beneath the waters of our harbours? And, if the coastguard can’t catch one little submarine, what good are they? It doesn’t make a body feel protected, she said.
I really liked the next one. He said that the coastguard should pay me for keeping an eye out for strangers in our waters. I could be like an underwater deputy.
Then someone called in claiming to be with the coastguard. He said the coastguard didn’t catch me simply because they didn’t want to put me in danger by chasing me, but that they would appreciate it if I would voluntarily report my vessel at any local harbour. Hmmm, I thought. No thanks.
We were crossing the mouth of White Bay when we hit a block of ice. We struck it on the starboard side and bounced off without damaging the sub, but it knocked me right off the bike.
Okay, I thought, I’ll be more careful. Then, we hit another one. It was a smaller chunk but we hit it dead on. When the sub collided, I could hear the wooden beams creak. Now I better understood Ziegfried’s ingenious design — the wood supported the steel by absorbing the shock, so the sub “bounced” like a wooden ball, instead of receiving a dent, or worse, a puncture. Ziegfried had also placed heavy-duty rubber wedges between the wood and metal to soften the blow. All the same, I was determined to avoid another collision. For the very last leg to Dark Cove, we rode safely at a hundred feet, under battery power. That was a good idea anyway, so no one in the immediate area could detect us by telescope, or anything else, and know where the “Outlaw Su
bmarine” was docked for the winter.
That was a good question — where would we dock for the winter? It occurred to me, we had never made definite plans. I just assumed we would moor the sub around the corner from where we had launched it. In truth, we had never really decided. I realized now, I should have given it more careful thought. As it turned out, Ziegfried had.
We approached Dark Cove at night. I saw the lights of the village and swelled with joy. The feeling of having had a successful voyage was exhilarating. But up on the hill, in the direction of the junkyard, I saw a blinking light. It seemed to be blinking with a pattern. I immediately thought of Morse code. Grabbing my code book, I watched the repeating pattern and wrote down the letters:
“ . . . t h i r t e e n m i l e s w e s t A l f r e d t h i r t e e n m i l e s w e s t A l f r e d t h i r t e e n m i l e s . . .”
I blinked back with one floodlight:
“O k a y C o p y?”
But there was no response. Likely the light was blinking automatically. Ziegfried was not there.
He wanted to meet me thirteen miles west. I wondered why. Well, he must have had a good reason. I hoped everything was okay in the village. Maybe people had figured everything out. Maybe there were people with cameras there. Maybe the coastguard was there. Or the police! Now I was worried. I hoped Ziegfried hadn’t gotten into any trouble.
The shore west of Dark Cove was unpopulated and there wasn’t a single light until we reached the thirteen-mile point. Then, I saw one lonely light down by the water. It wasn’t easy to see because the shore was a beehive of nooks and crannies and narrow fissures into the rock. Sailing closer, I had to keep an eye on the sonar to stay clear of jutting rocks here and there. It was the last place anyone would want to moor a boat. It was only when we were very close to shore that I realized the light was coming from some sort of boathouse built right onto the rock. It was well hidden from the sea. Through the periscope I saw Ziegfried’s hulking silhouette against the boathouse. How on earth, I wondered, had he ever found such a place?