Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [55]
Then it happened so fast: I felt a deep, powerful stream of cold bubbles and a current churning around me, dragging me toward it, pulling me down. It was the slipstream of the tanker. I tried to pull away, to sprint, but there was nothing I could do to match the force of that current. It dragged me backward and then released me.
With the passing of the ship, there was a pause in the waves. All the while, Pat and I had been shouting off and on to each other. Somehow we found each other. That in itself was a miracle. Now the question was what to do next. We couldn’t sit in the shipping lane and be run over by a tanker, but we couldn’t swim off into the fog either. Pat wanted to keep going, but I didn’t think that was a good idea. He had no nautical experience, and I tried to explain that when people were lost in the fog, they tended to make a huge circle, and perhaps become more lost. I thought we should stay put. He didn’t agree. He told me that I had to continue swimming, that I needed to keep going so I could break the record. But that seemed so unimportant now.
Then something began to happen underwater, and I was barely able to hold it together. There were fish, very large ones, moving below me. They might have been seals, dolphins, or sharks—I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t see anything below. The water was as black as the inside of a coffin. But I knew they were big: I could feel the water suddenly become hollow, and I could feel myself dropping down into the hole when they swam below me. It felt like I was being pulled down into an abyss, and fear rose again in me. Something big ran into my legs; I felt a thud and was spun halfway around. I couldn’t help myself—I screamed, a bloodcurdling scream.
A school of fish—maybe grunion or anchovies—ricocheted off my body. Then some larger ones moved below. I shuddered.
Pat suddenly let out a long, heart-stopping scream. A school of fish, maybe one hundred or more, attracted to the flashlight on his paddleboard, were flying out of the water like invisible torpedoes, smacking into his chest, flapping into his arms, and snapping against his hands.
“It’s okay, they’re just flying fish. They won’t hurt you,” I said.
“Come on, let’s go. If you stay there you’re going to get cold,” he said.
He was right. I was freezing. I wasn’t generating any heat at all, and my fear seemed to exaggerate the effect of the cold. Still, I argued with him: “We’ve got to stay where we are. Weren’t you ever a Boy Scout? Don’t you know that when you get lost you’re supposed to remain in one place?”
The crew was searching for us. They started by making a wide circle around where they had last seen us, then, accounting for time and drift, extending that circle. They were facing many of the same problems we were experiencing with the ships and the disorientation caused by the fog. Fortunately, the crew was very experienced. They had put out a call to the coast guard, informing them of our situation and requesting that they broadcast a warning to all shipping. The coast guard did just that and offered to help in the search if we weren’t found in the next hour.
Meanwhile, Pat had decided that if he started paddling, I would follow him. “Come on, stay with me,” he yelled as he paddled into the blackness.
I treaded water and watched him go. In a moment he’d disappeared. All I heard was the sound of his hands paddling. He shouted again at me. I didn’t respond. He turned the board around. “Where are you?”
He was going to get us lost. Maybe forever.
“Where are you?” His voice was becoming muffled.
I felt fear surging in me. I started shaking. I don’t know if it was because I was scared or because I was cold.
I didn’t want to follow him. But I didn’t want to lose him either. I couldn