Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [116]
This was my concern too. The last thing I wanted to do was to create a problem between the two countries.
Dr. Keatinge was politically astute; his father had been a member of Parliament, and Dr. Keatinge had maintained strong ties to the British government. He was right. If we went forward without clearance, the fallout could be really bad.
Dr. Nyboer Jr. was deep in thought, chewing on a piece of pepperoni pizza. “As much as I hate to admit it, I think Bill’s right. We’d look like that crazy guy who tried to walk across last winter. He was put in a Siberian prison for three or four days. Then the Soviets figured out he was mentally unstable and returned him to the U.S.”
“I don’t want to be connected with anything like that,” Keatinge said emphatically.
“It would be a great story, though,” Jack Kelley said to me.
I sat there listening to both sides of the argument, and I was very torn. Part of me wanted to go out there no matter what happened. This was everything I had worked for. Anything short of it would be very disappointing. The other part said I should just swim halfway. I could then at least make the point that we had tried.
The debate continued for more than an hour, and I kept hoping that the discussion would help me decide what to do. But then it occurred to me that the debate was starting to split the team. The doctors had decided that they would only go halfway, and the journalists indicated they would go all the way. This left me with more questions. If the doctors only went halfway, where was my safety net? Would it be too risky to go on without them?
Jim McHugh pressed the question: “So what do you think you’re going to do?”
Finally I arrived at the solution. “I will swim as far as they’ll let me,” I said.
“Does that mean that you’ll cross the border without permission?” Kelley asked.
“I’ll decide that when I have to,” I said, and thought, I guess I’m only going halfway. Well, at least that’s something. Not at all what I wanted, but at least it will give us a start.
The next morning, on Tuesday, August 4, we packed to leave for Wales but no flights were departing. The winds were so strong that all flights had been canceled. But we got good news from Eric Pentilla: the weather between Wales and Little Diomede had been terrible too, and he had been grounded. If we reached Wales the next day, we could fly out with the mail.
All day long we waited, as calls came in from all over the world. Interviews, training—it was crazy and intense, and I felt very fortunate that I could escape to Dennis Campion’s home and have some coffee with him and talk about his world travels.
On Wednesday morning, August 5, the airport was fogged in. We waited all morning, and at 1:00 p.m. we decided to leave the airport for some lunch. In the middle of the meal, David Karp came running into the restaurant at full speed and said, “Grab your bags—the flight’s leaving in an hour. You’ll arrive in Wales just in time to connect with Eric. He’ll fly you to Little Diomede.” David was as excited as we were.
As soon as we took off, I knew that the flight to Wales was going to be rougher than the first. Jim McHugh, who hated to fly, made me laugh very hard. “The editors tell me to ride the wild dragon, fight the hungry tiger, capture the running elephant, and I do all that, but they know I hate to fly in little tiny airplanes. Oh, my mother is lighting candles and praying for me. Oh, this is terrible,” he said, and held his head with one hand.
I took his other hand. “Don’t worry, it won’t take us long to get there,” I said.
“How long does it take?”
“Maybe an hour, and we’ve already been in the air at least fifteen minutes.”
He groaned loudly. I talked to him to distract him, so he wouldn’t be afraid, and so I wouldn’t be either.
Finally we arrived in Wales, just as the fog closed in.