Ghosts of the Pacific Read Online Free Page A

sealskin kayak. Wow!
    After a few minutes I was surprised to see the first chunk
of ice. I couldn’t see it clearly through the freezing rain. It
was teetering on the edge of the shore next to some rocks. It
was just one piece of ice all by itself. Then, oddly enough, it
dropped into the water and made quite a splash. I was surprised to see how quickly the current grabbed hold of it and
pulled it out. That was weird. The current wasn’t that strong.
What was going on?
    Curious, I paddled towards the chunk of ice. It was mostlysubmerged, just as a growler was supposed to be. I could
barely see it. But it was there. It must have picked up a few
rocks on shore because I saw a dark spot right at the tip of
the little piece jutting up out of the water. But it was coming
in my direction so quickly. How could that be? I stopped
paddling for a second. I raised myself up with my hands on
my thighs and tried to see more clearly. It wasn’t more than
a hundred feet away now. And then I saw something that
made me panic: two eyes. It wasn’t a chunk of ice at all—it
was a polar bear!
    I spun around so fast the front of the kayak came right
out of the water. The polar bear chased me all the way back
to the sub. It was such a strong swimmer I couldn’t believe
it! But I stopped panicking when I realized I could paddle
faster than the bear could swim. Still, it kept coming after
me and that was frightening. I couldn’t make the slightest
mistake, such as dropping the oar or slowing down. Polar
bears eat seals and I must have looked like a seal wrapped up
in my black wetsuit.
    When I reached the sub I only had time to climb up, tie
the kayak to a handle, open the hatch, throw the oar in and
jump in. The bear was only a couple of minutes behind. I
shut the hatch but couldn’t leave yet because I didn’t have
time to deflate the kayak, and didn’t want to leave it behind.
I hoped the bear wouldn’t rip it apart.
    Inside, I caught my breath and waited. Sure enough, the
bear climbed onto the hull. Man, was it ever heavy! It pulledthe stern down. I ran to the periscope and turned it to look
at the bear. It was huge! It was three times as big as the bears
back home in Newfoundland.
    I decided to dive a few feet and see if it would leave. I
peeled off the wetsuit, watched and waited. The bear swam
around in circles for a couple of minutes then headed towards shore. I felt kind of sorry for it now and wished I had
something to give it to eat. But what do you feed a polar
bear?
    Once the bear was on shore I surfaced and opened the
hatch. The kayak was okay. I deflated it, repacked it, hung up
the wetsuit, started the engine and headed north. I wasn’t
feeling restless anymore.

Chapter 4

    THE HUDSON STRAIT was miserable. All it did was rain. The
temperature hovered around zero, sometimes a degree
above, sometimes a degree below. The rain came as freezing
rain and just rain. But the farther north we sailed, the lower
the temperature dropped. Then the freezing rain started
sticking to the sub. I kept wiping it off, but every time I came
up it was back so I gave up after a while. The sub was starting to look like an igloo.
    It wasn’t just that it was cold, and it wasn’t just that the
freezing rain wouldn’t stop; it was also that the farther north
we went, the less darkness there was, until there was almost
none. With no break from daylight I couldn’t remember if itwas morning, afternoon or night. I was starting to think that
the Arctic could drive you crazy.
    And then we hit our first chunk of ice.
    It was a growler. It never showed up on radar and I never
saw it from the portal. We were sailing twelve knots when we
struck it dead on. It wasn’t that big but it made a heck of a
noise and shook everything loose that wasn’t tied down. The
desalinator went flying, hit the bicycle seat, spun around a
few times in the air and landed just a couple of inches in
front of Hollie, who