The last 650 miles of the expedition with the final destination of Nuuk
Change course to Pond Inlet and Northwest Passage
The last 650 miles of the expedition with the final destination of Nuuk
Change course to Pond Inlet and Northwest Passage
Crossing Baffin Bay and our short passage through the Other World
After 4 days of waiting in incredible suspense about whether we would be able to find fuels, with the possibility of getting stuck in Pond Inlet for a long time being really high, we were now ready to cross the Baffin Sea for the second time.
Those days were particularly painful for us.
It was an unforgettably bad experience which created a really heavy psychological cost.
We were trying to forget it and get back to normal.
Knowing that there was no gasoline this year in any of the Eskimo villages of the Northwest Passage, while at the same time the ice would be slow to melt due to this year's harsh winter, we were preparing for our return to Upernaviq-Greenland, on Monday morning.
DAY 44 - Monday, 15 of August
At 06:15΄ in the morning we had already untied the bow lines.
We slowly left our safe harbor and turned our bow to the east.
390 nautical miles separated us from Upernaviq.
The sea was calm in Eclipse sound, the narrow passage between Baffin Island and Bylot Island, so we were out in the open sea of Baffin Bay very quickly.
Time: 08:15΄
Position: 72°45΄N 75°00΄W
After two hours we were 15 miles off the coast of Canada.
We covered 56 nautical miles and consumed 219 liters.
The weather conditions started to worsen with south-eastern winds, while the sea was becoming increasingly wavy.
Time: 10:45΄
Position: 72°44΄N 71°21΄W
The Baffin Sea took us deeply in its hug.
During these two and a half hours our progress was very good against the worsening weather conditions. We covered another 65 nautical miles having consumed 253 liters.
But we still had 269 miles to go and the waves were getting rougher on our bow.
After noon the sea started to make it difficult for us and our consumption increased rapidly. Once again that unbearable stress of calculating the fuels, which were barely enough for us. Faced with the risk of running out of fuel, we decided to travel at 7 knots in order to reduce consumption, at the expense, of course, of our time of arrival.
The only positive thing was that we could sleep in shifts of two hours each.
There were only two of us now, after Carlos' hasty departure, and we had to manage our forces much more carefully.
With patience and determination we steered our bow against the big waves.
At 22:00΄, and while we had already been navigating for 16 hours, the fog started to thicken.
Air temperature 2 °C.
Water temperature 4 °C.
Big areas of ice of only a few centimeters high, began to appear in front of us. But there were quite large channels between them and so we continued staying close to our course without major deviations.
The tension within us began to fester and rise again.
Visibility was becoming increasingly limited until it soon reached the absolute zero.
We could hardly see our bow, while the large volumes of ice around us began to be hardly visible at a distance of just a few meters.
Carefully scanning our very limited field, we were trying to navigate between them at a speed of only 3 knots.
The situation was getting worse and there were still 120 nautical miles left to approach the west coast of Greenland.
At some point the images we were viewing started to become very scary and caused us great confusion.
We were not able to estimate our distance from the big pieces of ice correctly, and there weremany times that we brushed past their menacing ledges.
Air temperature -1 °C.
Water temperature -2 °C.
Our bodies began to freeze and our reflexes were severely limited.
It was now obvious that nightmarish times were approaching.
Almost at a standstill, with tight stomachs and pounding hearts, we were observing being almost at a loss. We were spectators of cinematic scenes that even Steven Spielberg would be jealous of.
The real and the imaginary looked so alike.
I couldn't distinguish the difference between them anymore.
I remember everything in every creepy detail.
But I don't know if I want to fully recall them and recapture them in an effort to convey that gloomy reality that seemed to be like the most horrible dream we ever had.
I was standing behind the wheel too embarrassed to do anything.
I slowly passed the north side of a small iceberg. I was so close to it, I could almost touch it. I slightly corrected my course and the bow was then pointing to a small gap between two ice plates.
An absolute stillness and that deafening silence of the absolute fog.
But this fog was different from others. It was as if there was a light lit somewhere that made the fog sweeter and more fairy-tale by eliminating its gray and dull color.
This fog was brighter and shinier.
But equally suffocating and terrifying.
It was as if a filter had entered into my glasses that brought into life everything around me.
The temperature kept dropping.
The thermometer was now indicating -4 °C.
Our lips began to bruise and our teeth chattered from the cold.
We couldn't even say a word to each other anymore.
Invisible sky, invisible sea, invisible world.
I was completely incapable of discerning anything anymore. I could only hear.
I could only hear chilling sounds which seemed to come out ofthe ice innards that kept on surrounding us slowly and torturously.
It was then that everything suddenly seemed to be pointless.
We were trapped and trying, to no avail, to find a way out of the frozen maze in which we were trapped.
We now lost any orientationin the dense fog and endless ice hills, and seemed to have been wandering for hours around the same spot.
The more we were watching our radar screen, the more our despair was growing.
There was no point in trying anymore.
I stopped thinking and took a “pause”.
Full of despair and great fatigue, we agreed to call for help.
We didn't know how much longer we could hold out.
We wanted more than anything else to had been able to push a magic button and disappear from this cursed place.
I took out the satellite phone and while holding it in my hands, I was trying to think of a solution but none seemed to work.
It was the first time in my life that I couldn't find a way out anywhere.
I kept on thinking, however, that if we called a helicopter for help then we would have to say goodbye forever to our lovely Rib with which we had become so attached. I threw the phone into the cabin and almost pissed off, I let go of the steering wheel and shouted to Chris: “I can't think of anything anymore. All I want is to clear my mind from all dead-end thoughts. Find a spot where we can be at a safe distance from the ice and staythere. We will stay still for as many hours or days as needed. I'm going to lie down in the cabin. Wake me up in one hour”.
I entered the cabin, I turned on the heater and without thinking about anything at all, I laid down as if nothing was happening. It was an unprecedented reaction of me to the unbearable pressure that tormented my thoughts.
I closed my eyes pretending that everything was fine, and all I wanted was to be able to sleep even for a few minutes.
I just wanted to empty my mind from dark thoughts.
But sleep seemed like a rare privilege at these hours.
Less than 10 minutes had passed when Chris's screams made me jump out of bed: “Get up quickly, the ice will swallowus...”, he shouted strongly and imperatively, in a state of near panic.
I threw myself out in terror and stood frozen by the shocking sight my eyes were seeing.
It was a monumental image.
A large volumeof ice about two meters high,which must have weighed several tons, was stuck to our bow.
At the stern, another volume of equal size pressed against the port side of the catwalk.
I flew back and I could clearly discern the underwater blue extension of the small iceberg, lying only a few centimeters below the engines’ lower units.
And then, that unforgettably deep thumping of the lower units hitting on the blue mass, making the whole boat shake.
But I couldn't shift into gear because it was more than certain that our propellers would hit on ice.
Chris grabbed the carbon pole and began to push the huge bulk of ice with all the strength he had left.
At some point, the stern of the boat detached and moved a little to the starboard side.
I immediately turned the steering wheel to starboard and momentarily put only the starboard engine in reverse so that if its propellers hit, I would at least have the other engine intact for the follow-on.
My purpose was to set our bow free.
Once I gained a few inches, I continued to go reverse and starboard while shifting the bow to the port with the help of the bow thruster.
I will never forget those shuddering sounds in the hull of the Rib as we were passing through the frozen boulders or when large pieces of ice were coming towards us moving rapidly by the strong currents.
As if “metal claws” were coming out of them, scratching the gel coat of the hull so hard and for such a long time, that even our soul was creeped out. They seemed like frozen souls talking to us,wanting to take us withthem.
Those sounds, like menacing long drawn-out screams, emphasized to us how weak we were.
Agony, unspeakable tension, raw awe.
No one can feel the unbearable pressure we felt, nor are there words to describe the truly terrifying moments we experienced.
The deathly peacefulness of the dense fog and those masses of ice, justa few centimeters around us, with the strange shapes, which looked like alive alienbeings wanting to devour us, will forever be etched in my soul.
I suggested that Chris should lie down in the cabin so that he could get some rest and get ready for what was to come. None of us knew what fortune would bring us next.
I was left at the wheel all alone, immersed in my thoughts, surrounded by an eerie landscape.
I knew that this mission had a lot of risk, but I never had imagined that the theory would beso far from reality.
Practically, it turned out to be an incredible nightmare.
I had a huge will to fight, but I didn't know how.
I was tryingin vain to find my balance.
I had to overcome myself and my thoughts whichwere leading nowhere.
I admit that at some point I was broken. I couldn’t take it any more!
It was really painful to keep fighting a relentless opponent knowing there was absolutely no hope.
So I stopped trying and I preferred to take a “pause” again and stay focused looking for at least one chance.
But God was there, by our side, and helped us.
It was Saint Mary’s evening August 15th.
And suddenly, as of a miracle, I remembered the words of my friend Stavros who had introduced me to the secrets of radar:
“Radar sees everything”, he had told me.
“We were stuckin the reeds of Evros once and the radar helped us find the channels between them and get out into the river...”.
“That's it”, I whispered to myself.
If the radar can see through the reeds then why not through the ice?
I bent over the radar screen and zoomed in as muchas possible.
A few tens of meters further down I could see a small crack withinthe ice.
I couldn't explain how it was possible for the radar to see the gaps behind the ice and I was very hesitant.
But I had nothing to lose.
It was the hope I was looking for to keep me fighting.
Suddenly, as if my mind had been clouded, I sped up, and I was pounding with my bow every piece of ice in my path.
Nothing could stop me now.
I wanted to smash the ice and get out of this scary maze as soon as possible.
I was now fighting to save not only ourselves but the boat itself as well.
Although my heart was breaking at the chilling moans of the ice as I furiously smashed it like a small icebreaker, I was so determined and vowed to ourselves to get the boat out of this hell.
For a captain, his boat is not just a hull to travel with.
It is his soul itself.
That night we experienced the most nightmarish moments of our lives.
We died for asecond time in there.
If there is a hell, it was here for sure, and we were trapped in it for so many hours.
The Other World in person.
At some point I came out into the small channel which was free of ice, just as the radar indicated.
I was greatly encouraged then, and hope began to grow inside of me.
I was now increasing the radar range to see what was going on within a mile of where we were.
To my great relief, I noticed that the radar showed some small channels visible among the numerous reddish masses a few hundred meters behind us, which appeared to lead to larger passageways, free of ice.
I turned our bow 180 degrees and, voraciously moving on with 3 knots, I continued to furiously pound the various sized ice blocksthat preventedmy course.
I was determined to return us home, to our families.
In less than twenty minutes I managed to be driven in slightly clearer water, withinthe narrow channels indicated by the radar.
The radarwas now my eyes and it gained my complete trust now.
I was faithfully following the image displayed on its screen.
My yearning was becoming bigger and bigger, as I was watching a big passagewayopening up in front of me. A passageway which seemed to release us from the Other World.
I increased speed to 12 knots despite the horrible fog that persisted in blinding me.
Our little boat was raising its bow towards the prospect of our freedom.
Clearly emotional and tearfulfrom the immense tension that was finding its way out and overflowing through my eyes, I opened the cabin door to wake Chris up.
What I saw made me tear up even more. I stood embarrassed watching. Chris, who had obviously sensed that something good was happening as our speed suddenly increased and the boat was ready to jump on plane at any moment, was squatting on the bed and with his palms together he was praying for us to get out of the icy impasse.
“Tell me it's true...”, he told me with a trembling voice.
Before I even answered, as I was nodding to him shaking my head up and downslowly, he jumped on me and, carried away by his great urge,we found ourselves down on the polyester tanks hugging each other.
We cried like little children and screams of joy echoed for miles, disturbing the deathly silence of the nightmarish fog.
Terrible emotions, unspeakable moments, unforgettable experiences.
I don't remember for how long we stayed hugging each other with our tears rolling down to the deck uncontrollably. We did not budge from our position as the immense tension, which had been building up within us for so many hours, was so unbearable that it absolutely had to be released in order to avoid the possibility of an uncontrollable explosion of panic with unforeseeable consequences.
We were now running at 20 knots and finally, after a long circle to the north, we got back on our proper course.
Everything looked fine now.
Even this merciless fog slowly began to thin.
But we continued to remain speechless and numb from the strong shock and enormous stress we had suffered.
No matter how much we wanted to, we couldn't free our thoughts from the terrifying nightmare we just experienced.
Shocking images kept on coming againand again at cinematic speed, forever etched in our memory.
We had already completed 29 hours of painful navigation…
...keep Ribbing!
