A Bear Grylls Adventure 12

by Bear Grylls

  Mia fumbled with the rope, while Bear did the same to a similar rope the other side of the wheel. Mia’s rope suddenly came loose and whizzed through her fingers. At the same time the sail at the front dropped down to the deck. The main sail dropped down a moment later as Bear released his rope.

  The loose canvas waggled about in the wind.

  Bear passed Mia a handful of bungee cords.

  “See if you can tie the main sail to the boom, and the foresail to the rail, to stop them flapping. I need to inspect the damage.”

  It wasn’t easy, but Mia worked out how to do what Bear had asked. She could bunch up a bundle of sail canvas in her arms, and press it to the boom, and then wrap the bungee cord around it. She did the same with the front sail – what Bear called the foresail – tying it to Ursula’s rail.

  The whales had all passed by and Mia and Bear were alone in the sea again. Suddenly a hatch in the deck at Mia’s feet flew open.

  Bear was down below, pushing up a large canvas bag with both hands.

  “Can you take this, please?”

  Mia helped drag the heavy bag up onto deck. Bear clambered up after it.

  “That first knock split some planks just behind the bow,” he said. “Water’s coming in below.”

  Mia stared.

  “You mean – we’re sinking?”

  “Only very slowly. Let’s make it even slower.”

  Bear opened the bag and tipped its contents out onto the deck. Mia realised it was another sail, all folded up tight. Bear unfurled it to its full length, and then with Mia’s help he folded it double, then double again, until it was its full length, but only a quarter of its width.

  “Now,” Bear said, “we’re going to pass this under the boat, and fasten it in place.”

  They each took one end of the folded sail and lowered it into the sea on either side of Ursula’s pointy front end. They let it sink down and then they slowly walked backwards on opposite sides of the deck, taking their ends of the sail with them.

  “This is the place,” Bear said when they were about three metres back from the front end. “Now, hold onto both ends. You’ll have to grip tight.”

  Mia held onto her end with one hand, and reached across to take Bear’s end of the folded sail with the other. The sail tugged and jerked. It was heavy and hard to get a grip on. Her fingers ached and she just wanted to let go.

  And she almost did, before she remembered one thing that was kind of important. This sail was meant to stop Ursula from sinking.

  So Mia held on.

  Bear whipped a length of rope through metal eyelets set into the ends of the sail, tying the two ends together. At last Mia could let go. She worked out that the sail was now wrapped completely around the hull, pressed tight against the damaged planks and held in place by the rope. Bear dropped down through the hatch for a moment, and emerged again looking pleased.

  “That did the trick, just like it did two hundred years ago for Admiral Nelson. He had to patch up cannon-ball damage but the idea’s the same.”

  “Is it waterproof?” Mia asked.

  Bear smiled.

  “No, but water pressure is pushing it against the hull to seal the hole – the water will still come through, slowly. We’re going to have to pump, regularly and often.”

  Mia felt mostly relieved. Bear sounded more relaxed so she guessed that much of the danger was over. They weren’t going to sink. She didn’t really listen to Bear’s comment about pumping.

  Bear puffed his cheeks out.

  “We’d better have some water and some rations before we do the next bit. That last knock caused even more damage.”

  Mia’s brief feeling of being okay suddenly vanished.

  “Another hole?” she asked in alarm. Bear had already said that Ursula’s dinghy was swept away in the storm. If the boat went down now, then there was nowhere for them to go.

  “Fortunately, no. But it took away the rudder. We’ve got no way to steer. Right now, we’re just drifting out of control.”

  5

  MIXED MESSAGES

  “Eighty-five …” Mia gasped. “Eighty-six …”

  Sweat poured down her face as she heaved on the pump handle. Her arm was killing her. The other side of the hull, water gushed out of the boat and into the sea with every stroke.

  The handle was tucked away behind the ladder. When Mia had first gone down below, water had been sloshing on the floorboards. Up on deck, she’d only half-listened to Bear’s instructions. She had been too busy thinking of her own things. But as soon as she saw the water she quickly started pumping. Obviously this was serious.

  Every heave felt like she was moving a ton of water.

  “Eighty-seven … eighty-eight …”

  Bear was on deck, doing more repairs. Bear had suggested that Mia count to a hundred strokes, to make the time pass more easily. Then start again with another hundred, and keep repeating until Ursula was dry.

  Mia had lost count of how many times she had got up to eighty-eight, and kept going. Her arm was aching with the unusual effort.

  Surely a quick break couldn’t hurt?

  Mia paused, and flexed her throbbing arm with relief. But as soon as the pump was quiet, she could hear the water sloshing below.

  There was no easy way out of this, she realised. Just pump.

  Mia gritted her teeth and started again.

  “Eighty-nine …”

  On top of all that, there was a really weird smell in the cabin, which made her gag. It was like something had died beneath the boards. Bear said it was the bilges. There was always somewhere, right at the lowest part of the boat, where the pump couldn’t reach. The water down there went stagnant and foul. The flood of sea water had mixed with the bilge water and brought it all up close to the cabin. Every slosh sent a signal to her stomach that she wanted to be sick. She fought it back.

  “Ninety … ninety-one … ”

  The pump made a gurgling, sucking sound, and suddenly moved more easily. There was almost no resistance.

  Mia had done it! She had pumped the water out of the boat!

  She scrambled back onto the deck and gratefully breathed the fresh air. The rotten bilge smell still seemed to be lodged inside her, at the back of her throat.

  “We’re dry, Bear!” she gasped. “For now.” She knew that more water would already be leaking in through the sail patch.

  Bear looked up from what he had been working on, and grinned.

  “Brilliant!” he beamed. “Great work, Mia. If we give it a hundred strokes every hour from now on, that should do it. Now, could you get me a length of rope from the second locker along?”

  Mia felt a bit cross about being ordered about. But there was no one else to help, so she grudgingly held her breath to go back below, into the bilge-smelling air. She found the rope Bear wanted. Mia was halfway back onto deck before she suddenly realised something.

  Bear had told her where the rope was, and she had been able to go straight there, instead of fussing around in the stinking air, trying to find it. Ursula had a place for everything, and everything was in its place.

  It must have taken time and effort to get the boat like that, but it was obviously worth it. Mia knew that the word ‘shipshape’ means being tidy and well ordered. She could see why. She remembered what her bedroom at home looked like, and how her parents were always nagging her to get more organised. She usually ignored them.

  She climbed quickly back onto deck before she passed out from the smell, and handed the rope over.

  Bear had taken a washboard – a flat piece of wood that had been slotted into the cabin entrance to keep the weather out. It had ventilation slots cut into it and he had fastened it to one end of an oar, looping the rope through the slots.

  At the other end of the oar he had tied on a wooden pin, sticking out at right angles, with a kind of X-shaped knot that lashed around it, over and over again – top left to bottom right, bottom left to top right. It all looked pretty complicated to
Mia, but she guessed what it was for.

  “Is that our new rudder?”

  Bear nodded.

  “Sure is. Do you think you can help me fix it in place?”

  Together they lowered the oar into the sea by the back rail, next to one of the vertical rail supports. Mia held it in place while Bear lashed it to the rail with the rope she had brought him, using another of those X-knots. Then he tied another around the oar and the bottom of the rail support, so that the oar was held in two places.

  “That will stop it flopping about,” Bear said. He gave the wooden pin an experimental push. The oar turned left and right in its knot supports, but it stayed attached to the rail.

  “Okay. Once we’re moving again, this should give us a bit of control …”

  Suddenly Mia felt her guts give a heave inside her. She clutched her middle and gulped. A moment later it was like her entire stomach wanted to crawl up out of her mouth. She leaned quickly over the back end of the boat and was sick into the sea.

  “It’s sea sickness,” Bear said with sympathy. “The motion sensor in your inner ear tells you that you’re moving, but the cabin seems to be staying still, so your brain gets mixed messages and the result is you feel sick. A strong smell like the bilge water can just make it worse. Hold on.”

  Bear was back a moment later, with a piece of cloth, and a couple of mugs of water. He tore the cloth into two strips.

  “There’s an acupuncture technique …” he said as he wadded one strip up into a tight little ball. “You press on your wrist, and that stimulates the nerve, which is more specific than the mixed messages the brain is getting, so it helps the brain ignore them. So press this against your wrist …”

  Mia held the wadded cloth against her skin with a finger, while Bear wrapped the other strip tight around it, tying it off in a knot to hold it firm. The wad pressed into the skin of her wrist.

  “You can’t walk around pressing your wrist all the time, so this has the same effect. You can also try looking at the horizon. It looks like it’s moving, even though it isn’t, so your brain gets the same message from eyes and ears.”

  Mia usually hated it when people gave her ‘good advice’. Especially grown ups. But looking at the horizon really did seem to help. Besides, she really didn’t want to throw up again.

  “How are you feeling?” Bear asked after a little while.

  “Less sick now,” Mia agreed. “Thanks.”

  Bear smiled, and passed her a tablet from a bottle.

  “This is for rehydration. Being sick loses water and salt from your body, and neither of us can afford that.”

  Mia popped it into her mouth, and reached gratefully for one of the mugs. The sick had left a taste in her mouth and she wanted it gone. Bear took the other mug. They both drank at the same time – and immediately spat it out.

  “It’s salty!” Mia exclaimed. The water was disgusting.

  “Yup,” Bear said gravely. “That’s not good. If the sea has got into our water tank that means we can’t use it. Not a drop.”

  6

  BIG WATERY DESERT

  Mia looked longingly at the waves. Sparkling blue water in every direction. It seemed to be calling, ‘Come on, drink me!’ And she badly wanted to. The salt water had soaked into the sides of her mouth and her tongue, and made her ten times thirstier.

  “I know you’re not supposed to drink salt water,” she said, “but why? You can eat salt on your chips, so why can’t you drink it too?”

  Bear nodded.

  “It’s a good question, Mia. Salt in sea water is three times more concentrated than your body can cope with,” he said. “It pickles your kidneys, which filter toxins out of your blood. If you drink too much, it’ll kill you. So, the basic rule is – do not drink sea water. Ever.”

  Mia sighed and looked back at the ocean. It stretched out as far as she could see.

  “It’s a bit like being in the desert, isn’t it?

  We’re surrounded by this stuff that’s dangerous to us.”

  “One big, watery desert,” Bear agreed with a smile. “But there are ways to cope. Right now our number one priority is to get moving again.”

  Together they hauled the sails back up and Bear got them back on course, cautiously handling their new tiller.

  “It works,” he decided, “but it’s very sensitive. It’ll need constant attention. Mia, I’m going to have to leave some things up to you. I’d better brief you.”

  “So, you’re going to tell me what to do,” Mia said without thinking, and her brain shut down. It was automatic. An adult was giving instructions, so they went in one ear and straight out the other.

  But today Mia overrode her brain. She forced herself to start listening. This was life and death stuff out here. It was important. Bear was talking about water.

  “… I estimate the island will be no more than three days away, and we each need at least one litre of water per day. So that’s a total of two litres per day for three days …”

  “Six litres,” Mia calculated.

  “There’s bottled water in the locker under the sink. See how much we have, and bring one of the bottles up.”

  Mia popped quickly back into the cabin, holding her breath. She counted the bottles, and her heart sank. She took one back on deck.

  “We’ve got four litres, including this one,” she reported reluctantly. Bear opened the bottle thoughtfully.

  “So, we need to ration ourselves, and supplement what we have.”

  He took a mouthful from the bottle, but didn’t swallow it immediately. He gargled it, then swilled it around in his mouth, then licked his lips, then swallowed. He handed Mia the bottle.

  “Take a mouthful.”

  Mia was so thirsty that she gulped it down before Bear had finished.

  “Woah! Hang on there … do what I just did and swill it around your mouth first. It helps the water soak in so you get as much good as you can from it.”

  Mia took more care with the next mouthful. The water moistened her mouth and made her less thirsty than she had been.

  “Now,” Bear said, “I need you to get more stuff out of the cabin. There’s a big bowl and a pair of metal cups in the locker by the cooker. There’s a plastic sheet under the bunk and a couple of fishing weights and bungee cords from the locker up here … Can you get all that for me, please?”

  Mia could feel herself wanting to tell Bear to get it himself, but she resisted. She knew that they were in a bit of trouble and that he needed her to do what he said. She decided to trust him. Besides, being busy helped take Mia’s mind off feeling ill. She quickly followed Bear’s instructions.

  “That’s great,” he said as she added the last item to the pile on the deck. “Thanks, Mia. Now can you set the bowl down on the cabin roof? It needs to be as flat as possible.”

  The cabin roof was pointed, but because Ursula leaned over while they were under sail, one side of the roof was almost flat.

  “Okay, now put one of the cups in the middle of the bowl. Weigh it down with one of the fishing weights. Scoop up some sea water with the other cup and fill the bowl until it’s about an inch deep.”

  Mia did all that, but she left out the weight for the cup. What was the point of that? She poured the sea water into the pan, and the cup started to float. Now Mia saw the point of the weight. She quickly rescued the cup before it toppled over into the salt water, and dropped the weight in.

  “Now put the plastic sheet over the bowl loosely, so that it dips down in the middle. Use another weight to make sure it stays dipped, directly over the cup inside. Fix the sheet in place with a bungee cord around the rim …”

  Eventually Mia had got it set up like Bear said.

  “What does this do?” she asked.

  “It’s called a solar still. The sun will warm up the sea water, so it will start to evaporate and leave the salt behind. It will condense on the plastic and turn back into liquid …”

  “And trickle into the cup!” Mia realised h
appily.

  “That’s right! It won’t get us much – maybe half a litre a day at most. But it should help us close the gap. That will get us five and a half litres out of the total six that we need. We’ll leave a tarpaulin out at night to collect any dew on deck – that’s another source of fresh water …”

  Suddenly Mia barely heard Bear. There had been a flash of light from behind him. The sun reflecting off glass or metal. She ran to the back rail and stared.

  “What is it, Mia?”

  “There’s a ship behind us! Look!” She pointed to a tiny blob on the horizon.

  Bear grabbed some binoculars. “Great spot, Mia! It’s an oil tanker. Fetch a flare from the locker, there. One with an orange top.”

  The locker was full of metal tubes like batons. Mia grabbed the nearest one and passed it to Bear, but he shook his head.

  “I don’t really want to let go of the tiller. You do it. Point it away from you, aim it up into the sky, and give that cord on the end a hard yank …”

  Mia did, and she almost dropped the tube in surprise. It went off with a bang. An orange ball of fire shot into the air and floated down again like a mini sun.

  “Shouldn’t we turn around towards it?” she asked.

  “We’d better not. The water flow could rip the patch sail away, and if they don’t see us then we’re just wasting time going back the way we came. We won’t catch them up. They’ve got engines, they can come to us – if they see us …”

  Mia and Bear eagerly fixed their eyes on the shape on the horizon, waiting for it to turn towards them.

  7

  POSITIVE ATTITUDE

  Mia quickly realised two things.

  One was that she was holding her breath, and starting to feel a little dizzy. She started to breathe normally again.

  The other was that the oil tanker was sailing on without changing course. Slowly the dark blob disappeared below the horizon, and that was that. Mia felt the disappointment hanging on her shoulders like weights.