Right now, I wish I didn’t know what it feels like to be in that water; I wish I couldn’t even imagine it. In all my years in Antarctica, I’ve fallen through the ice exactly once. It happened seven years ago in the Ross Sea; I’d been with a group of geologists from the U.K. who were planning to drill a hole in the ice for their research on fossils. We traveled in a caravan of snowmobiles but also had to do a lot of hiking on foot, across pressure ridges formed by overlapping pack.
I don’t remember falling in—it was so sudden, so unbelievably quick—I recall only the sound of the ice breaking, the heart-stopping rumble and crack, and then I was submerged. The water was violently cold, sucking every bit of heat from my body. When I opened my eyes, gasping for breath, I realized that I was being pulled underneath the ice by the current. I reached up through the opening my body had left and grabbed on to the shelf of ice. Turning my head, I saw one of the geologists holding out a pole for me, standing well back from the edge, lowering his body to the ice so he could crawl toward me. It was dangerous for him to be so close, but he had no other choice. I caught hold, kicking my legs, trying to help him in his efforts as he reached down to haul me out. As he towed me up onto the ice, I saw that behind him another geologist was holding his legs, and yet another was holding hers—a chain of humans flattened out on the ice, desperately moving backward, away from the thin part that had given way.
As soon as we backed onto more solid ice, one of the geologists helped me strip off my clothing, and the one who’d reached in for me was taking off layers of his own, dressing me in his socks, his sweater, his parka, calling out to the others to bring me dry pants, gloves, a hat. My skin was bright red, the blood having rushed to its surface in an attempt to preserve the body within. My limbs felt numb, and my entire body shook convulsively for the next hour—but I was lucky. Many who meet head-on with the waters of the Southern Ocean don’t survive long enough to die from acute hypothermia; they suffer cardiac arrest, or they go into what’s known as cold shock and drown. Within the first few moments of submersion, the heart rate escalates, the blood pressure increases, and breathing becomes erratic. The muscles cool rapidly, and those closest to the surface of the skin, like the muscles of the hands, quickly become useless. You can’t move, can’t speak, can’t even think. Even at forty degrees Fahrenheit, let alone twenty-eight, it only takes three minutes for hypothermia to set in. Water rescues are rare; recoveries are not.
I PULL OFF the mask from over my eyes, which I’d hoped would help me sleep, and turn my head to the side. Amy is lying in bed on her back, a similar mask over her own eyes. I can’t tell if she’s asleep or, like me, she’s been lying awake all night.
Glenn had encouraged us all to get some rest while we could, and Amy and I had lain in our bunks, speculating about the Australis, daring to hope the situation might not be as bad as it seemed. She assured me that Keller would be okay, and we told each other that the damage might, in fact, be minimal—that we could end up encountering a scene of calm and order. Finally we fell into silence.
I get up, throw on extra layers and my crew parka, and look at my watch—nearly five in the morning. We must be getting close.
Amy stirs and sits up. “Did you sleep?” she asks, and I shake my head. “Me neither,” she says.
Outside, the water has given way to a dense mix of brash and pack ice. The sea is now a chunky soup of pure white, with a few specks of dark gray where the water peeks through. Amy and I stand together on the foredeck, not speaking, and I strain my eyes while the Cormorant creeps along, feeling it shudder as it punches its way forward. There are only a half dozen passengers out here—most are still asleep. When we’d passed through the lounge moments earlier, we’d glimpsed a few people with books in their hands, their eyes focused on the portholes. And here on the deck, several passengers shoot videos of nothing, maybe hoping to be the first to capture footage of the sinking ship, and a few others take selfies.
I have to look away from them. Not far off, crabeater seals doze on icebergs and floes. Some raise their heads briefly and then return to their naps; those who are closer slump toward the water and slide in between the tide cracks, frightened by the rumble of the engine and the thunk of ice hitting the ship’s hull.
We’re getting close, but thanks to the murky air, I can’t see very far ahead. The fog has coalesced into the ice, wrapping the Cormorant in a whitish haze. As we push forward, the muffled drumbeat from the hull intensifies in proportion to the ice in our path. I glance up over my right shoulder toward the bridge, half-wanting to be there and half-needing to be away from all that tension.