Ghosts of the Pacific Read Free Page B

another pot. But
if you ran the water through only once it was still too salty
to drink. Running it twice was better, though it was still a
good idea to run it through a filter after that to remove the
last traces of salt and other minerals, like gold. Ziegfried said
that sea water carried traces of gold. The desalinator was
good for cleaning rainwater too, which could be kind of
salty at sea.
    I discovered that first-run water from the desalinator was
perfect for making stew. Sheba had shown me how to make
a pot of stew in a small pressure cooker. I used one potato,
one carrot, one onion, one clove of garlic, one tablespoon of
butter and one pinch of spice—a mix of thyme, sage, pepper and rosemary. Ziegfried raised his eyebrows and calledit “sub-stew.” But if you ate it with a hard biscuit it was really
good!
    Seven hundred miles north of Bonavista Bay we turned
sharp to the port side. The Button Islands were to the south
and Resolution Island to the north as we entered the Hudson Strait. We had been sailing only three and a half days,
and I couldn’t believe how much the climate had already
changed. The temperature had dropped from twenty-one
degrees to three. The air was fresh but cold. The water
looked different too, although I couldn’t say why. It was just
as dark at home. But here there was something else, something foreboding.
    It was so hard to take Ziegfried’s advice and slow down. If
we didn’t slow down we could sail through the Northwest
Passage in a week. With Ziegfried’s advice it would take a
month. Could we, maybe, split the difference?
    I decided to cut our speed to twelve knots. Even that was
so slow I could barely stand it. I climbed the portal, strapped
on the harness, stood on top of the hatch with the binoculars and scanned the water. There was no ice. And it was
sunny.
    Nothing showed on radar either, although my mariner’s
manual said not to trust radar for ice. Sometimes it will show
and sometimes not. Sometimes it will leave just a shadow on
the screen like the dry spot under a tree after a rain shower,
except that sometimes a huge tree leaves only a small spot.
Don’t trust radar, they warned. Okay.
    So we sailed at twelve knots, which was slower than Iwanted but faster than Ziegfried advised. Seaweed took to
the air like a kite. I pedalled. Hollie ran on the treadmill.
Then we stood in the portal for a few hours together and
leaned against the hatch and watched the sky grow less
sunny, although the sun never actually went away. It just settled behind some clouds and turned red. Then, very slowly
the red faded to grey, like an element cooling down on a
stove. As the sun faded, the temperature dropped. Now I was
pretty sure it was freezing. It had that feel to it, as when ice
forms on puddles overnight. Hollie sniffed the cold air.
    â€œCan you smell ice, Hollie?”
    He looked up. Maybe.
    At the end of the day the sun was still up, glowing weakly
behind darkening clouds. It was going to rain, I thought.
Without darkness it was hard to know when to sleep. I
steered closer to Baffin Island. We would have to drop anchor to sleep. To do that we’d have to sail close to shore. The
strait was a thousand feet deep in most places.
    By the time the first drops of rain fell, the cliffs of Baffin
Island loomed above us. They were tall and gloomy, like
silent warriors standing at the edge of the land. I bet they
were beautiful in the sun. Seaweed had flown to shore. I
dropped anchor in forty feet, shut the hatch, dimmed the
lights, climbed into my cot and drifted off to sleep. Hollie
made a reconnaissance of the sub’s interior before settling
on his blanket. I heard him sniffing. I knew what he was
sniffing for too. I had hidden his rope.
    To keep him sharp.
    Nine hours later I woke, stretched, climbed the portal and
opened the hatch to find a very miserable bird sitting on the
hull in freezing rain. “Good morning, Seaweed. Want