Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [126]
The crew was shouting at the top of their lungs, waving their arms in the fog. No one could see them, and their voices were muffled, and no one could hear them, either. Jim McHugh and Jack Kelley began whooping. The entire crew yelled. The motor sound grew louder again.
Turning to breathe, I saw Claire Richardson bouncing up and down in the umiak. Jack Kelley was pointing. “Look, there they are! It’s them. It’s the Soviets!”
It was one of the most beautiful sights of my life. The dark gray Soviet boat motored slowly out of the fog toward us. They were there. Really there. And they were going to help us.
For eleven years I had imagined this moment. I had imagined meeting Soviet sailors in the middle of the Bering Strait. But I never could have imagined the way I would feel. All the work, all the hope, all the faith, all the belief, all those people who’d believed and who hadn’t, and now, the Soviets were right there.
“It’s them! It’s the Soviets!” I heard the crew shouting.
Claire Richardson yelled to me, “What day is it, Lynne?”
“It’s tomorrow. It’s tomorrow!” I shouted.
We had crossed the border and the international date line; we had reached from the present into the future. We had done it. My goggles filled with tears. Finally, we had found each other.
The Soviet launch stayed at a distance of fifty yards, and the sailors on board maintained stoic expressions. I couldn’t understand why they weren’t coming closer. Had we arrived too early or too late? Had there been another breakdown in communications? Were they angry at us for allowing the other umiaks to join us? Some of the villagers had come across with us, although during the swim I hadn’t seen them. Someone aboard the doctors’ umiak said that two of the villagers’ umiaks were turned back. But that was expected, as they hadn’t gotten clearance to land on Big Diomede.
With the Soviet pilots guiding us into their territory, we moved directly toward Big Diomede. One of the crewmen, a fellow with curly brown hair, wearing a green uniform and a brown leather jacket, introduced himself. He said his name was Vladimir McMillian, and he was a reporter for TASS. He spoke perfect English. I shouted to him, “Vladimir, is there something wrong? Some reason why they don’t want to be closer to us? Please, I want to see your faces.”
The crews talked back and forth. I couldn’t listen because I had to keep swimming to stay warm. But when I looked up again, both crews were smiling and the Soviet launch was moving in close to us, just ahead of the journalists’ umiak. They hadn’t wanted to be in the way. But they were smiling, and I felt like we were doing this together now.
“Your stroke rate is dropping to fifty-six,” Dr. Nyboer said. “Down from seventy strokes per minute. You’ve dropped way off pace. You’ve got to pick it up.”
My hands reached deep into the gray sea. I couldn’t feel them at all. There was no sensation. Put your head down. You’re wasting time looking up. Focus. You haven’t finished. Come on. Pick up your pace.
Slowly the sun began melting the fog, and the top of Big Diomede Island towered above us. We were less than four hundred yards from shore. That’s when it happened, exactly when Dennis Campion had said it would: the current grew stronger, and the water temperature dropped to thirty-eight degrees. My body shuddered. My teeth started to chatter, and chills were crawling continuously up my spine. The water was only six degrees warmer than an ice cube, and my body was screaming, Get out! This water stings. Oh God, it’s so cold!
Go through the pain. Just swim through it. Don’t focus on it. Don’t give any energy away to it. Keep focused. Keep swimming. Seabirds nesting in the cliffs on Big Diomede were calling. We were almost there. Fifty yards. I was tiring, and I was so ready to finish. I couldn’t wait to get out of the water and crawl into a warm sleeping bag. That thought made me swim faster.
Turning to breathe, I saw the crew in the Soviet launch pointing to a snowbank a half mile south of us.
Vladimir McMillian,