Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [93]
Another piece of pan ice bobbed in Dena’s path. She rowed onto it and smacked it with her oars. It wouldn’t break. Turning my arms over quickly, I swam in place. She tried again. It still didn’t break. She tried hitting the ice with one oar at different angles, but it still didn’t work. Dena was struggling now. Gripping the gunwales, she stood up and jumped down in the boat, trying to use her weight to crack the ice, but she was such a featherweight, she couldn’t do it. She held the gunwales, coiled her knees up to her body, and bounced up and down in the boat. I couldn’t help myself; I started laughing. It was contagious—soon Debbie and Fritz were laughing so hard they were bent over.
Dena wouldn’t give up. She rocked the boat back and forth, and then pushed herself high into the air. When she hit the floorboards, the pan ice heaved, groaned, and cracked. Dena grinned triumphantly, then laughed, her brown eyes radiating sheer delight, and she motioned for me to follow quickly.
This time, it felt as if I were swimming through ice soup. Tiny blades of ice ricocheted off my body. With a quick sigh, I made it through that section. But a large berg was now directly beside us. There was no way I could swim over it, so I decided to stop for a moment and let it slide pass. That was a mistake. The icy cold water quickly seemed to pull the warmth from the marrow of my bones.
We were about halfway across the Muir Inlet now, and I was starting to think about the finish. When we landed and I climbed out of the water, the cooled blood from my extremities would be pumped back into my heart. If the blood was too cold, it could cause my heart to beat irregularly. Getting cold now could have more serious consequences later. In the afterdrop phase, I could go into severe hypothermia and pass out, or my heart could stop. So far I felt I was okay. Actually, my confidence was growing. It was really strange; I could feel heat from my abdomen as if it were a radiator, and I could feel it moving up through my body. I dipped my chin into the water, then my lips and face. Instantly my face went numb, but I didn’t get a headache. I tried again, longer this time. The water tasted sweet, just a little salty. Glacier Bay was different from any waterway I’d ever swum. My lips were numb.
Jeffrey Cardenas looked at me from the boat; I could tell he was becoming increasingly concerned. We had traveled around the world together, and we had become good friends. Jeffrey had been the person who had suggested this area; he said it would be an incredible spot for a swim. Jeffrey knew that my original plan had been to keep my head up during the entire swim. Knowing that a person loses up to 80 percent of their body heat through their head, I’d thought I would be able to keep my body temperature up by keeping my head up. But during the crossing I changed my mind.
“Are you okay?” Cardenas shouted. His teeth were chattering. He was from Florida, and he didn’t like the cold.
“I’m fine. Just experimenting,” I said between quick breaths. My neck and shoulders were sore from holding my head up for so long. But I also wanted to see what I was capable of doing. I needed to know for the Bering Strait. The farther I could push myself now, the more I would know.
Kicking my feet to increase my tempo and to get my numb arms to turn over faster, I put my head down for a couple of minutes and sprinted. My face ached. But I could do it. I lifted my head and looked around. Dena was waving at me