“Well, he sounds like he’s done a lot of research. And he does make a point. It’s kinda difficult these days to wipe out twenty-nine people in complete secret, and nothing is heard from them, or their ship, ever again. Specially when everyone knows exactly who they all were and exactly where it happened.”
“Yeah, and they signaled they were under attack, from the Japanese, who have since denied everything.”
“Like their goddamned whalers,” muttered Boomer.
“He makes that island sound pretty damned creepy, don’t you think?” said Bill.
“Sure does. Says it’s the end of the earth. Nowhere.”
“Well, Boomer. It might be the end of the earth to a guy in Hyannis, but it’s not the end of the earth to us. We pass close to it, coupla hundred miles to the north of us.”
Laura, who had thus far listened in silence, suddenly said, “Why don’t we call in, find the ship, rescue the people, and return home to universal acclaim? Jo can go on the Today show and explain to a grateful nation about the two Navy heroes she sailed with.”
Boomer chuckled. “What does a guy have to do to get a cup of coffee around here?” Then he said, “You know, I wouldn’t mind having a look at Kerguelen. Would we have time, Bill?”
“I’m not sure. But I’ll hop below and check out the chart, then I’ll bring the coffeepot and the Antarctic Pilot back up with me, and we can find out for ourselves.”
“Thanks, Laura,” laughed Jo. “You’ve just talked these two nitwits into a nice little holiday on the most barren, desolate, freezing coastline in the southern hemisphere — there’s nothing there except penguins. I read that stuff about Kerguelen in the Cape Cod Times. And there was one fact I remembered — there is a gale force wind there every single day. The guy said it comes out of the southwest, across the high mountains, and then literally roars down the fjords.”
“Yeah, well we probably won’t be going anywhere near the fjords,” said Boomer. “Matter of fact we might not even go inshore if the weather’s bad, except for shelter in the leeward side.”
At this point Bill handed the coffee and the southern navigator’s bible up through the hatchway and then climbed through himself. “It’s a couple of thousand miles from here,” he said, “which at our present rate of sailing is about eight days at most. It’s not that far out of our way. Right now we’re heading for the south end of Tasmania, latitude 43.50S, on the Great Circle route, the shortest way. The northern approach to Kerguelen is on 48.85S — that would be about a couple of hundred miles north of us. If we alter course a couple of degrees right here, we’d hardly notice it. I guess it would be fun just to see it.”
“Okay, guys, this is a democracy,” said Boomer. “Anyone hate the idea of going there?”
“Yeah, me,” said Jo. “But I can’t wait. Change course, Captain, and let’s go find that Cuttyhunk.”
They all raised their coffee mugs, and Boomer made an elaborate show of altering course two degrees to the north. Laura snuggled up to Bill in the corner of the cockpit while he studied the Pilot.
They sailed in silence for a while until the former Lieutenant Commander Baldridge spoke up. “This place is unbelievable,” he said, looking up from the pages of the Antarctic Pilot. “Let me tell you something…our course will take us well north of Prince Edward Islands, which are quite big and warrant just less than two pages in the Pilot. Then we may pass within sight of the Îles Crozet, a coupla fair-size groups of islands fifty miles apart on longitude 45.60S, they got about three pages.
“Kerguelen has more than three hundred islands and about a zillion bays and fjords. The Pilot names and advises on all landmarks, dangers, bays, potential anchorages, cautions — and it takes up nineteen big pages, fifteen of ’em just naming and describing the places. Can you imagine trying to find a sunk ship in there? It’d take about a thousand years.”
“Yeah,” said Boomer. “Guess so. But I wouldn’t take this yacht in there. First of all, it’s not ours, and if we hit a rock or something, it would probably rank somewhere near me sinking the Japanese whaler on my résumé. But most of all, they are plainly dangerous, very lonely waters. Any traffic down there at all, Bill? Anything military likely to be around?”
“I can’t see any traffic routes at all. It simply doesn’t lead anywhere. It’s not on the way to anywhere. Unless there is a specialist penguin feeder or something, I cannot see one reason why anyone should ever go there, except for scientific researchers like those Woods Hole guys.
“Militarily? Jesus, there’s no one to shoot! I think the place is uninhabited. You couldn’t get an army down there, and there’s no place for an aircraft to land. The only thing that could get there is a warship, but I’d be amazed if there’s been a warship in those waters for sixty years.
“According to this, there was a big, old whaling station down there in the last century, but I think Ahab and his harpooner Queequeg pulled out a while ago. Militarily there were three German warships down there, Commerce Raiders in World War II — the Pinguin, Atlantis, and Komet. The Brits chased ’em out and then mined the place in case they went back. The Pilot has mine warnings all over the place. Not for floating mines; they’ve all been cut and exploded, but the hydrographers seem to think there’s quite a few left rolling about on the bottom.”
“Yeah, well that settles it,” said Boomer. “We’re staying offshore. Definitely. I don’t like loud bangs. Hey! You don’t think that’s what happened to the Cuttyhunk, do you?”
“No chance. I believe Goodyear on that one. He says those guys must have been under attack, otherwise they would not have sent a satellite message to say they were. Also if they’d hit a mine there would have been wreckage all over the place.”
“Right. There would have. One of those damned things can blow a ship to smithereens. When I was a kid in a frigate we once found four of ’em right under the surface in a bay in the Azores. The Royal Navy sent down a couple of minesweepers to clear them, and after they cut the wires we had a contest with rifles, see who could hit and explode one. I nailed one of those suckers from about a hundred yards, and I can still remember the spray from the blast raining down on the ship.”
“Yeah. Well, we’re definitely not going inshore,” confirmed Bill. “I don’t like big bangs either.”
“Well,” said Jo, “if you two wimps are afraid of a few underwater explosions, I guess Laura and I will just have to settle for a long offshore view of this romantic place. We’ll turn the CD up loud and hit the king penguins with a burst of Pavarotti.”
“Don’t count on anything down there,” said Boomer. “We may not even see it. You get huge banks of fog, low cloud over the water, and sometimes even snow. I’m glad we all brought warm clothes. It can drop to freezing very quickly.”
“What about icebergs?” said Laura.
“We’re running well north of the Antarctic convergence,” said Bill, confusingly. “And we’re out of the northern range of the icebergs. You don’t see ’em much at this time of year, and I’d be surprised if we met any on our route. Might be a bit different if this were July.”