Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [91]
Matkin provided a solution. She was an expert with small boats. While studying humpbacks, she spent a lot of time rowing out among them, and she had developed skills that enabled her not to disturb them. She said we would not encounter any humpbacks because the water was too cold; they had already swum to Hawaii. On my swim, she would row a small dory in front of me, and would act like a mini ice breaker while Koshman, Woodruff, and Cardenas monitored us and the ice from the boat.
Woodruff pulled her long wavy brown hair back into a ponytail to get it out of the way, then began radioing her fishing friends down the bay to inform them of our status. The captains were relaying this information to Matkin’s friends at the Forest Service, and they were updating an airplane pilot who was on standby in case of an emergency. The airplane would be able to provide support as long as the weather held, and as long as there was light.
Muir Inlet narrowed to a mile. Here we were surrounded by an awesome towering amphitheater of majestic serrated white glacial peaks and steep shale midsections and bases. In the distance, half a mile at most, was the Riggs Glacier, a breathtaking mountain of white, blue, and green ice compressed for millions of years, a sort of massive frozen history of time. Its enormous beauty and power seemed to say, “Look at me; I am Alaska, the heart and essence of it, wild, pristine, and enduring.”
Fritz suddenly turned and started to land the boat on a crumbly black shale beach about a mile from the Riggs Glacier.
“Can’t we get closer to it?” I asked. I wanted to see it more closely, from many sides.
Koshman shook his head. “It’s not safe. The glacier can calve without warning, and those huge blocks of ice weigh thousands of pounds. They tumble into the bay at thirty or forty miles an hour, and when they hit the water they create waves up to twenty feet high. A large berg can capsize a boat or take it under. I’ve seen it happen before. We’d better get moving,” he said.
While Matkin rowed the tiny boat into position and Koshman picked his way through the icebergs to the beach, I pulled off my parka, sweats, shoes, and socks, and looked to the opposite shore for reference points. In a straight line the distance across was one mile, but with the ice, current, and icebergs, we wouldn’t be going straight. I knew this would be the longest mile I’d ever swum.
Small shale pebbles from the mountain ridge above our heads began sprinkling the beach with rocks. They were dropping every minute or so, and starting to increase in size. Once Koshman landed the boat, he said, I’d better hurry; we could be in for a rockslide, and he wanted us offshore before that happened.
Quickly I climbed up on the boat’s railing. As I started to come down over it, the part of my Lycra swimsuit where the strap joins the chest got caught on a hook inside the railing. The strap was stretched out like a rubber band, and I was at an angle where I couldn’t pull myself back into the boat and I couldn’t reach over the railing and free myself; I was suspended in midair, bouncing up and down and laughing really hard.
I tugged on the strap, yanked it. It was strong material, but finally I ripped a hole in it and tore myself free.
On the ground, I tied the suit together, but the knot wouldn’t hold. It kept slipping out. “Okay, forget it. I’ll just swim like this. I’ll just keep my right arm in front of my chest until I get into the water,” I said.
“You can’t swim like that, with your top torn off,” Matkin said.
It didn’t matter to me. I just wanted to start. God, I just wanted to start. But she was right; I couldn’t swim without a top. I needed some protection from the ice, or I could really get cut.
Rummaging through my