Ghosts of the Pacific (6 page)

ON THE THIRD DAY
, I was woken by a loud noise. It echoed
across the sky like thunder. There was a crack in the ice. I
jumped to my feet and climbed the portal. In the distance I
saw a dark spot. I grabbed the binoculars, strapped on the
harness and stood tall on the hatch. About a mile away I saw
an icebreaker clearing a path for a tanker. She was cutting
through the ice like a chisel. The ice was breaking up around
her and a crack had crept all the way over to us. I wondered:
did they see us? Would they know we were here? I looked
down at the hull. Nope. Not a chance. We were caked in ice.
From that distance we would have looked like any other
bergy bit.

The ice began to whine and shake. The sub was shifting. I
hurried to put on the wetsuit, grabbed the gaff and went out
with the rope and harness. I poked and jabbed as hard as I
could to clear the propeller, which took a lot of work. But
the ice was breaking up around us and I was excited. Finally,
I freed the prop, climbed back inside and hit the dive switch.
As we went down, the sides scraped tightly against the ice.
Then the scraping stopped and we were free. Yippee!

We followed the tanker, which followed the icebreaker,
which broke ice all the way to Boothia Bay. But it was slow:
seven knots. And it was noisy. The engines of the tanker
echoed underwater with a sound that I imagined a landslide
would sound like: a loud roar and continuous rumbling.
There was no escaping it. It wouldn't have been a problem if
we were able to sail on the surface. But we couldn't. The ice
rushed in to fill the open water of the tanker's wake. We
would have smashed into growler after growler, and even at
seven knots that was more punishment than we could bear.

So, we stayed submerged, but fell farther behind to lessen
the roar of the engines. A few hours later the sound came
from starboard and grew weaker. That was the only way I
knew we had entered the Gulf of Boothia. The ships were
heading north. I tried to surface but failed. We were too far
from the tanker's wake. I turned to starboard, cranked up our
speed and chased the sound of the engines. After three more
tries we surfaced into the path of broken ice and spotted the
tanker. The Gulf of Boothia was just as ice-locked as the
Fury and Hecla Strait. If we had not recharged the batteries
on our way through the strait we would have been in trouble
now. I ran the engine for twenty minutes then submerged to
catch up.

It was another whole day before the ice started to break
up. The farther north we sailed, the freer it flowed, which
was kind of odd. Then, rather suddenly, we came upon open
water. There were growlers lurking still but we were able to
sail on the surface again. Seaweed took to the air. Hollie and
I climbed the portal and felt the cold wind on our faces. It
felt as though we had just broken out of jail.

A few hours later I was leaning against the portal, sleepily
following the tanker at eight knots when I felt I was being
watched. Turning around, I saw three huge dorsal fins in the
water following us. It spooked me. I raised the binoculars.
Killer whales!

I had never seen a real one before. They were about the
same size as the sub, twenty feet or so, but they looked so
powerful. They followed for a little while, which felt weird,
as if we were part of a pack or something. I wondered what
they thought of us. And then, I saw something I wished I
had never seen.

With an unbelievable burst of speed the killer whales shot
past us, all three of them. They charged ahead just like dolphins. I followed them with the binoculars. They went up,
down and around growlers but kept charging until they
crashed into something. That's what it looked like. I was so
curious. What did they run in to? What were they doing?

A few minutes later I knew. Pools of blood came swirling
through the water, as if somebody had dumped red dye into
the sea. Five hundred feet to starboard the killer whales were
attacking, killing and eating another whale. It was twice
their size. Water splashed high into the air. The killer whales
rose out of the water as if they were jumping from trampolines. They twisted round, turned sideways, backed up and
charged over and over, biting chunks out of the whale. Blood
darkened the water everywhere. It was awful. I wished I could
have saved the whale but that was impossible. I felt so bad
for it my heart was breaking. There was absolutely nothing
I could do. The worst of it was that the whale's tail was still
moving. It was alive. They were eating it alive. I dropped my
head. I didn't want to see it anymore.

This was nature. I knew that. I kept telling myself that.
And yet I felt such a sadness that I didn't want to accept it.
And that sadness stayed with me for a long time.

The water seemed to come alive with the break in the ice,
especially as we approached the Bellot Strait. There were
more whales and there were dolphins, seals, walruses, polar
bears and fish. The seafloor was rising. The shallower mouths
of rivers and straits were always good feeding grounds for
creatures of the sea.

The icebreaker and tanker left us behind at the Bellot
Strait. They went north; we went west through the strait.
The Bellot Strait was like a washing machine. I had never
seen anything like it. It was twenty-five miles long, a mile-and-a-half wide, was framed by two enormous cliffs and had
a current of eight knots! It would be fun to ride through on
a rubber tube, except that you'd freeze to death if you fell in.

The current changed direction like the wind, and I had to
time our trip to avoid sailing against it and the ice that the
wind pushed in our way. I dropped anchor outside the mouth
and watched as growlers and bergy bits came spinning out
in whirlpools. Then, when they stopped, and I felt the wind
shift, I weighed anchor, motored out and let the current pull
us through. We bumped into ice on our way but never hit
anything dead-on because everything was moving in the
same direction at the same time. How I wished the whole
Arctic worked like that.

When we came out, we were in the Franklin Strait, and for
the very first time made a southward turn. Soon we would
pass King William Island, where the
Erebus
and
Terror
had
been icebound and bones from Franklin's crew had been
found. I was kind of excited. Could we maybe find the ships
that nobody else could find?

Not a chance! I had barely picked up King William Island
on radar when the growlers began to gather. Within a couple
of miles we ran into heavy ice again. No wonder no one could
find the Franklin ships; the Arctic was guarding them in an
icy grave. You would probably need a nuclear-powered sub
to find them.

As I stood in the portal and took a last look before going
under the ice once more, I tried to imagine the Franklin ships
sailing in here. I couldn't imagine anything on earth more
impossible.

It took us two weeks to sail into the heart of the Arctic and
two weeks to sail out. It was the longest, slowest, most difficult month of my life. I wasn't sure how we would return to
Newfoundland from the Pacific, but it wouldn't be through
the Arctic.

“
HELLO, ANGEL.
I hope you can hear me. I never know for
sure if you can, but I will read this letter to you anyway. I
hope you and your mom are feeling great. Please say hi to
your mom from me. Hollie and Seaweed are here and they
say hello too. Hollie is sitting on my lap. Do you want to say
hello to Angel, Hollie? He is sniffing at the transmitter. You
probably can't hear him. Seaweed is watching. We finally
came through the Northwest Passage two days ago. It was
pretty tough and I'm glad it is over. We saw lots of animals
that you would like: polar bears, walruses and snowy owls.
We got
really
close to a polar bear. He stuck his nose inside
the hatch. The Arctic is very cold but pretty. There is too
much ice and you have to sail way too slowly. It drives me
crazy.

“We can't wait to sail south and run around on a warm,
sunny beach somewhere. We're in the Beaufort Sea now,
which is full of ice too, although there's open water next to
the beach for about a mile out. There are growlers though.
Growlers are chunks of ice that growl at you. Just kidding.
The nice thing about where we are now is that we can walk
on the beach anytime we want to. That makes Hollie happy.
But we have to watch out for polar bears. There are a
lot
of
polar bears in the Arctic. There are communities up here too
but nobody seems to care that we are passing by. Maybe they
can't see us, I don't know. I think we are in Alaska now, even
though I didn't see border guards or anything. I think we
must be. In a couple of days we'll turn south, finally, and sail
towards warmer water. That is exciting. I hope your new
school year is going well. Please say hi to our father when
you see him next, and tell him that I am writing him a letter, slowly, and that I will mail it to him when I am finished.
I will read this letter to you two more times now in the hope
that you will hear all of it. Take good care of yourself, Angel.
Love from Alfred, Hollie and Seaweed.”

My sister, Angel, had a shortwave receiver that we had
sent to her in Montreal. She could only receive messages; she
couldn't send them. We agreed that I would send her messages on Friday nights at nine o'clock her time. Reception
was better at night. If it was storming on Friday I would try
on Saturday or Sunday. It always felt a little weird to send
messages when nobody was answering, but I knew she would
be sitting at her receiver waiting for me to call. A whole
bunch of other people around the world would be listening
too. That's how shortwave radio works. That's why I never
mentioned where we were exactly or where we were from.
And that's why I never used the word “submarine.”

When we rounded the northwestern corner of Alaska, we
made a sharp turn to port and started sailing due south
through the Bering Strait, the shallow waterway between
Alaska and Russia. If there was any waterway in the world
watched closely by sonar, radar and satellite, I figured it was
here.

There was lots of traffic though, and that was a good
thing. There were freighters offshore sailing north and south,
and smaller boats hugging the shore. Those were likely fishing boats and pleasure craft. I was hoping to blend in with
them and sail unnoticed, though I didn't really think the
Alaskan coastguard would let an unknown submarine sneak
by, not even a small one.

The smartest thing was to stay on the surface and fly the
Canadian and American flags from the portal. So long as we
did that we were allowed safe passage by the Law of the Sea.
They could stop us and inspect us for sure, and they could
demand we sail into port if they wanted to, but they'd probably only demand that if we looked suspicious. We were
pretty good at not looking suspicious.

If we were going to be inspected, I'd much rather it was by
the Americans than the Russians or Canadians. It was kind
of ironic to be less worried about being inspected by a country other than your own. But the Canadian government
would expect the sub to meet all kinds of fussy standards of
construction, and be insured, and for me to have sailing
papers—all things I didn't have. Another country would only
want to see a valid passport. Of course it would be different
if we sailed into a foreign port and actually tried to moor.
Then they would want to see registration papers and everything else.

The flags flapped loudly in the wind as we sailed south,
hugging the Alaskan coast. It wasn't long before a helicopter
flew overhead and took a close look at us. I waved and tried
to look as friendly as possible. I carried Hollie up. Half an
hour later, a small coastguard vessel approached. It was a
very sleek motorized dinghy. It had two engines like rockets
on the back, and three men on board. They came alongside
us in a very no-nonsense manner. Two of the men were
holding machine guns and the other was at the wheel. He
held up a megaphone and barked at us.

“Canadian vessel?”

I shouted back loudly and obediently. “Yes, sir.”

“Are you planning to dock your vessel in the United
States?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you carrying weapons?”

“No, sir.”

“Will you grant us permission to inspect your vessel?”

I nodded my head. “Yes, sir.”

They motored closer. The two officers with machine guns
climbed onto the sub. They were official but friendly. One of
them stood on the hull with me while his partner climbed
down the portal and had a look around. He was smiling
when he came out. “Take a look, John.”

They switched places. “Where are you heading, son?”

“To Micronesia first. Then, I'd like to sail to the South
Pacific.”

The other man came up. He patted Hollie on the head.
“This is quite the sub you've got. Did you sail this through
the north?”

“Yes, sir. Took me a whole month.”

He kicked the hull with his boot. “That's pretty cool. Don't
know if I'd be comfortable travelling so far in such a small
boat. Anyway, it's good you're flying the flags. Are you intending to stop anywhere along the United States coast on
your way?”

“No, sir. As soon as I pass through the strait I will head
southwest.”

“To where?”

“To Micronesia.”

“Do you have enough fuel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you want to see in Micronesia?”

“Lots of things. I want to visit Saipan, for sure.”

“Do you have a visa to visit Saipan?”

“Not yet. I guess I'll ask for one when I get there.”

I hadn't even thought about it. I just figured I'd hide the
sub and sneak on shore. But I wasn't about to tell him that.
He raised his eyebrows. “Well you'd better plan to wait for
that, from what I hear.”

I nodded. “I will.”

They started to climb back into their boat. “How old are
you?”

“Sixteen.”

He shook his head. As they revved their engines and pulled
away, he pointed to the water and yelled out, “Stay on the
surface!”

“I will!”

He gave me a small wave and they were gone. I waved
back. We were free to continue. What a wonderful feeling.