Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [125]
The current was pushing us north, and we were cutting across it. Our concern was still that we would be pushed into the Chukchi Sea before we reached shore. Then ghostlike fog blanketed us, constricting the light, and our visibility dropped to ten yards. It felt as if we had become detached from the world, a tiny blip of warmth on an icy, gray sea. We were moving in a void between the two islands. I felt like screaming. I was losing sight of the boats. That fear from the Catalina swim had come back to haunt me, only this time it was worse; it gripped me so hard that I was shaking in the water. I sprinted closer to the umiaks for human warmth. I needed to stay near them. I couldn’t lose them.
David Soolook checked his compass and noticed that we were thirty degrees off course. He shouted something to Pat Omiak in Inuit, and suddenly both boats made sharp forty-five-degree corrections to the left.
Now the current was broaching the left side of my head. Do they know what they’re doing? I wondered. Don’t they realize that every moment we stray off course, we diminish our chances of making it across?
How could I expect them to know this? They hadn’t expected me to get into the water. They didn’t think anyone could swim in the Bering Strait and survive.
Heavy drizzle began falling as Dr. Keatinge and Dr. Nyboer waved me over for another reading. I rolled over onto my back, impatient and grumpy. These readings were taking too long. Every time I slowed down, I got colder. Tremors were racing up my back.
Dr. Nyboer was doing his best, but he couldn’t get a reading. He waved me away from the boat, then back again for another attempt. This time I ignored him. I had to start swimming faster, had to stay warm. The point wasn’t to be a human subject; it was to get across. This was slowing me down.
A few minutes later, Dr. Nyboer waved me over again. He held the receiver right above my stomach while Dr. Keatinge studied the monitor. The receiver was malfunctioning. Although the doctors were working hard to fix it, cold was moving into my muscles, and they felt like wood. At that moment, I decided I would not stop again for tests. I couldn’t afford it.
Suddenly we made another sharp correction to the left. Why can’t we stay on course? I wondered. Have we missed Big Diomede? Is that why the Soviets haven’t appeared? We had to be at least halfway by now. We had to have crossed the border. Where are you? Can you hear us? Please find us.
I didn’t know it then, but Pat Omiak and David Soolook weren’t sure where we were. They had hunted walrus only along the border, never crossed over it. So they didn’t know what the currents were like on the other side. Pat Omiak asked Dr. Keatinge what heading he should take. Neither Pat Omiak nor Dr. Keatinge knew how far north we had already drifted. Rich Roberts, the journalist from the Los Angeles Times who was also a sailor, asked Pat Omiak what heading he was on, and then Rich helped Pat make a critical correction.
The crew searched the fog for the Soviets, knowing that we needed them to guide us to shore.
At first I thought I heard a sound through the water. It sounded like a small boat’s motor, but then it disappeared. I heard it again. It grew louder, and then faded again. Please find us, I thought.
The sound of the motor grew louder. I could feel the water trembling around my body. I could hear the engine’s soft putter. The crew heard it too. The Soviet boat was circling somewhere out there. It was them. It had to be them! They were searching for us! The putter grew deeper; then the sound changed. They were moving away.