Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [94]
When I cleared it, I put my head down again. My face was already numb, so it didn’t feel as cold this time. I counted my strokes up to one thousand. This time my face was in for maybe three minutes.
Jeffrey Cardenas shouted, “I thought you were going to swim all the way with your head up.” He was worried. I think he thought I was losing it, or on the verge of hypothermia.
It took so much additional energy to talk. “Don’t worry. I’m okay. I just need to see what I can do,” I said.
He looked at me through his Nikon’s long lens. “Your face is bright red and swollen. So are your shoulders. Your lips aren’t purple, and I don’t see any discoloration in your shoulders.”
“Thanks, Jeffrey.” He was telling me I wasn’t hypothermic. That was very good news.
I continued sprinting. We were three-quarters of the way across the inlet, and to our left, the Riggs Glacier was calling. Wind-driven plumes of snow were rising above the glacier’s face. Massive chunks of ice were exploding into pieces as they tumbled into the inlet with such force that the waves reached us in a matter of minutes. They were a couple feet high, making the icebergs twist, turn, and bob around us. Swimming around them became trickier. We had to give them more space—they were becoming tipsy and they could roll over on Matkin and submerge her or me. We watched more intently, reacted more rapidly. The intensity of this swim was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was unbelievable. There was so much to be aware of, and yet, throughout it all, I had to stay absolutely focused on how my body was responding. The icebergs I passed seemed to be exhaling breaths of icy air. Despite the cold, I was enjoying the swim. It was absolutely beautiful, seeing the icebergs dancing in the water currents, watching them as they changed colors—blue, green, white, silver, and gold—and brightened with light and deepened with shadow.
The Muir Inlet was like a natural amphitheater as the wind in the bay increased to five knots. The sounds of the moving ice, creaking and moaning, grew louder, and with the movement of the water and wind, the earth and trees, the high notes became sweeter and longer sustained. We were listening to a symphony of Alaska sounds. This was something I had never heard before, something I had never imagined, something beautifully new.
Koshman checked the thermometer and noted that the air temperature had dropped to thirty-three degrees. The sun’s warmth was completely extinguished by thick gray clouds. If the temperature dropped any further, we would have real problems with pan ice and getting back home.
My feet, arms, and legs felt like stumps, and for the first time I noticed sharp, cold pain shooting into my armpits. Matkin and I approached another iceberg and she motioned for me to go left. But I didn’t follow her. She had taken a course against the current that added twenty yards. It would take too much effort. Instead, I swam right toward the iceberg, thinking that the current would move it out of my way before I reached it. Poor physics. The iceberg and I were moving downstream at the same speed. Caught on an underwater ledge, I had to drag my chest, stomach, and legs off the iceberg, and it felt like I was sliding naked down a snowbank covered with rough ice crystals and nodules.
Matkin broke through another ice panel and pulled ahead. By the time I reached the panel, it had twisted completely around in the current. There wasn’t time for me to swim around it; I was too cold, too tired. It was thicker than the pan ice from before, and I knew I had to break it with my arms. I was scared. I lifted my arm and slammed it down against the ice. It didn’t break. I tried again. It hurt a lot. I was glad my arm was already numb. I took three quick strokes and used the weight of my body to break through it, the ice splintering around me.
“Swim closer to me,” Matkin urged, pulling her red cap down tightly on her head.
This time I listened to her and stayed right behind her stern.
Debbie and Jeffrey were leaning