Stormcatcher

Copyright © 2020 by Linda Eketoft.

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CONTENTS

The Wandering Albatross

The Ice

Buenos Aires Memories

Neko Harbour

Sailing

Magic

Real Deception Island

Point Sharp

Curiosity At Spigot Peak

Raise The Sails Flandres Bay

Anvers Island

Cape Errera And Memories

Vernadsky

How Far Can I Go?

Journey Across The Ice

No Man’s Land

Blazing Skies Of Red

The Echo

Exposed Answers

Maps

Calling

THE OCEAN WAS ROARING OUTSIDE HIS WINDOW.

STORMCATCHER

66° 33’ 39" S

ANTARCTICA IS THE EARTH’S SOUTHERNMOST CONTINENT. IT IS, ON AVERAGE, THE COLDEST, DRIEST, AND WINDIEST CONTINENT, WITH STRONG WINDS OVER THE CIRCUMPOLAR RANGE OF THE SOUTHERN OCEAN THAT ALSO GIVE RISE TO THE BIGGEST WAVES ON THE PLANET. THE RECORDED TEMPERATURE IN ANTARCTICA HAS REACHED -89 DEGREES CELSIUS. ONLY ADAPTED ORGANISMS CAN SURVIVE, INCLUDING ALGAE, BACTERIA, FUNGI, AND CERTAIN PLANTS, ALONG WITH ANIMALS SUCH AS PENGUINS, SEALS, AND MAMMALS SUCH AS WHALES.

THE WANDERING ALBATROSS

54° 47’ 60 S, 68° 17’ 60 W

The albatross had flown for five days and six nights. Now it was sailing in the Patagonian wind towards a continent covered in ice and snow. It made its way over an ocean of indigo velvet that breathed like a clam, opening and closing, caressing everything in its way. The wind lifted the bird from the ocean’s surface; and it kept gliding for the next mile, up and down through an everlasting lasting quest. It had flown through storms, battling with powerful winds from north and west where the cams of unruly water had sought to get a grip of its wings. Exhausted, it had found rest and ease over the waters of Tierra del Fuego. Through storm-clouded skies that built up such fierce winds, no other bird could fly as well as the albatross.

This morning, it travelled on light winds that brought it into the Lemaire Channel and the Antarctic Peninsula. The bay lay peaceful under its wings. In the stillness of the water, every little feather was retold in its glacial mirror. On both sides of the channel, the ice-covered, mountainous terrain rose high, overpowering everything that sailed through. The water so clear brought confusion as to where the ice cap ended and where the sea began. A man on a sailboat watched the ice with intense fascination. Like pure crystal, it tempted him to get closer for a good look. He knew that coming too near would mean the end before too soon, as his small boat lacked the capacity to travel through ice. Within the mist of the morning, he stood firmly by his navigation board while his boat cut the surface like a sword through silk.

The man, who was in his early forties, stood tensely focused at his wheel, his face torn by doubt. The twilight of the early morning hour imposed on his vision and his judgement. Many were those who would agree that sailing into the peninsula without a plan would be suicidal. He knew. Going in slowly with his motor running at low speed, he watched the scattered ice and the channel ahead. He tried to estimate the distance between bow and ice and the depth of the water, which contained darkness without illusion. Ice closed in from the sides, as the neck of the channel grew narrower in certain sections, making squeaky noises almost amounting to desperate screams. It was the end of February and no other sailboat in sight. Soon the cold would prevent all sailing, and the sea would freeze.

The man had nothing to return to. He doubted that anyone would have noticed that he had taken his boat and sailed away. Gone were those days when he used to seek things. Now everything felt old and worn. His haggard face expressed a strange longing. His bleak eyes did not contain any aspirations. They were always far away in a reality known by people who never return. Their only flame of curiosity would only emerge when he observed himself in a drinking glass. They came alive every time he invited harmful thoughts that inspired him to fantasise about placing himself in a state of emergency.

His existence was like a small piece of tissue that had been torn and scattered in the wind, aimlessly circulating, flying, only to land in an insignificant place. Whenever he would receive new energy from a vibrant day, the black hole of a man he was would only swallow it and render him into his own nothingness.

Sounds from the motor reminded the man of times past. The ship’s name, Victory, held stories of happier days. But he had not been able to remember them very well for a long time. A noise from ahead drew his attention. A humpback whale was feeding with her calf in the bay. He could only distinguish them vaguely through the grey of the morning. He was standing by the steering wheel with a fur hat flapping around his ears, being swept by a quiet wind. Wrapped up in a windproof jacket and holding on to a compass and sea map, he rode through the mist, continuing deep into the peninsula without seeing anyone. The mist gave way for the bow, reminding him of a fine silk veil. He saw ghosts from his past haunting in the still morning breeze. Come here, they whispered. Come here. Let’s play a game.

He kept watching for sea birds, and soon he saw an albatross flying past. He sighed and held his hands firmly on the steering wheel. She strode for him, flew for him, and remembered for him. You cannot fly forever, the albatross whispered. No, but if I stop, the man remembered.

The channel did not speak of anything else but the truth of now. It was just as clear as the reflection of the ice against the calm surface of the sea. The past was compressed in ice; and the future lay before him like a confused, fragile mystery. Who was the man to say what the future held for him? All he had ever known was how to run away from himself. How could he ever lower his sail and reflect over things never ventured? He had passed the stage of feeling self-pity or sadness. What remained was a shell of a man filled with emptiness. His memories had flown away to a better place to escape his frozen gesture. He had since become a puppet—his arms, his legs, all on a string. Men he did not see or comprehend pulled him in different directions. They made his feet march in the direction of oblivion. The albatross resting on the winds had whispered strange things. Yet it was too late.

THE ICE

65° 05’ S, 64° 00’ W

OF ANTARCTICA’S AREA 14 MILLION SQUARE KILOMETRES, AN ENTIRE 13.72 MILLION SQUARE KILOMETRES IS COVERED IN ICE, WHICH MAKES THE CONTINENT ABOUT 98 PER CENT COVERED BY ICE THAT AVERAGES AT 1.6 KILOMETRES IN THICKNESS. PUT INTO CONTEXT, THE CONTINENT REPRESENTS 90 PER CENT OF THE GLOBE’S ICE. IF IT WAS TO MELT, SEA LEVELS COULD RISE BY 80 METRES. ANTARCTIC SEA ICE GROWS TO ITS MAXIMUM THICKNESS EACH SEPTEMBER AND MELTS TO ITS MINIMUM IN LATE FEBRUARY, AFTER WHICH IT RESUMES GROWING RAPIDLY. COLD AND DENSE WATER FORMS UNDERNEATH THE SEA ICE WHERE IT SINKS AND GRADUALLY FLOWS NORTHWARD TOWARDS THE EQUATOR.

The man had steered his sailboat through the Lemaire Channel. He had managed to navigate through it without knowing how far his luck would take him. The ice started to look dense in places, and patches had already merged to form smaller icebergs. Miniature islands of tightly compressed ice crystals showed him the way along the shoreline of each bay. Observing the powerful elements all around him made him feel entrenched. He relished it in an utterly morbid way. He had brought himself here. As far as his eye could see, there was no one. The albatross from the other day still pursued his boat. He looked up on the mountainous faces of both sides of the channel. He knew that the ocean’s sway would have set the sea moving enough to keep the way clear for his boat to pass through. Once he had reached the other side, he would be in a safer position. He was planning to continue his journey and swiftly push on; but ever since he had departed from Patagonia, questions about his motive filled his mind, and he was aware of his ignorance of his destination. Aimlessly wandering as he was—would it have made any difference to him if he had a determined goal? His mind torn from life had thrown him in all directions. Could he have felt any more settled? Where could he go to forget? The faces of his late wife and daughter that November morning on the side of the twisting road glazed by frost still played like a repeat film. He believed that it would never abandon him. Through iron curtains of heavy fog and dew, the broken faces of his lifelong love and their baby were etched in his mind like a horrific still-life painting of the most precise brushstrokes an artist could have captured. A thick red mass of endless sorrow devoured the interior of his car and him. It brought him along to the other side, making it impossible to continue life with the living.

Many years had passed, and he could not find any other way. Every day he had searched for reasons that would keep his mind alive. He would lie in his bed trying to focus his strength and to concentrate his sense of being to a single point on his forehead before opening his eyes. Trying to achieve a state of meditation, he was hoping for the world to appear less meaningless at the moment he would open his eyes. He searched for a state of pure objectivity and a sense of calm inside nothingness as a way of getting himself out of bed. When all his desires were exhausted, he knew that eventually he would have to get his body moving. After two months of staying in a hospital bed with a collarbone fracture and a couple of broken ribs, he had run out of excuses for eternal sleep. The doctor had until that point agreed to keep him under care as a personal favour before sending him home. Once he had started to show too-intense signs of lethargic behaviour, such as not moving from his bed even for the purposes of relieving himself, the nurses had raised the alarm to the psychiatric clinic where doctors quickly diagnosed him with deep depression and suicidal tendencies. Following a few days when he refused to open his eyes, respond to any human interaction, or eat or drink, the psychiatric specialist prescribed electronic shock therapy. He did not materially respond to the treatment the first time, and he was kept under strict surveillance in an attempt to stabilise him. Food and water was given to him in the same way until a shift in his behaviour was identified. He noticed it all, yet there was no way he could explain it. His body had become a puppet on a string. It danced joyfully on the mental image of his late wife and daughter to the rhythm of whatever tune the nurses were playing on the local radio channel. His mind told him that this was sick, yet he kept on smiling. In fact, the mere thought of how sick the situation was made him occasionally break out in hysterical laughter; and without warning, he felt the urge to sing. He concluded that these were really the times when he would have wanted to cry. He watched his hand lifting the spoon reaching for food on the plate that had been placed in front of him three times daily. His bodily mechanisms had taken over the decisions that were normally formed in his mind. He was released after another couple of weeks. The specialist had diagnosed that his state had stabilised to the point where he could take care of himself. He had robotically nodded and smiled in agreement. The day the hospital had eventually discharged him was a sunny afternoon. He had left with nothing feeling empty. Walking down the garden path towards the exit was like a dream; the birds were singing, and the garden trees were budding—all in chorus, acknowledging the season. And the soothing sound of water from the winding garden spring could have made anyone peaceful. He walked with surreal steps, his body feeling somehow detached. It was as if good times from his past were stuck in a tale that was repeatedly retold. Yet he remembered that nothing would ever be the same; how could anything good possibly be waiting?

A false sensation of happiness and lightness kept streaming through his being as he turned the front key in the lock at home. Inside his empty and quiet apartment, he suffered from a sense of paranoia. He placed his drugs in his daughter’s musical box that once opened and turned the figurine of a dancing ballerina. The music box stood on one of the shelves in the bathroom next to the bedroom. After some time, he managed to overcome most of his agonising paranoia, and eventually he found sufficient sense of peace to fall asleep. An intense darkness surrounded him as suddenly during the night, the music box began to play. The melody ‘Für Elise’ rang through the air and woke him abruptly. He lay still for a moment to listen for foreign noises around his apartment. Was there someone in his bathroom? He did not know how it came about, but what otherwise may have been experienced as utterly absurd and ghostly macabre played him quite an amusing joke. Once he had broken out in laughter, there was no point of return; he needed to let it all out. Knowing that laughing was immensely absurd spurred him on even more, and he laughed at himself hysterically laughing. He then laughed at how hysterical he was and how desperately sad he had become. He laughed imagining how his daughter, Sanna, would have laughed at him hearing her music box wake him up in the middle of the night, as if it had been one of the many tricks she would have used to play on him. And then without warning, his laughter came to an abrupt halt for no obvious reason. Ten minutes later, he was sleeping again. The music box had stopped playing.

The wind had increased. He watched the wimples on his mast forcefully flutter. He became aware of something in the corner of his eye. The albatross sailed through the air, slowly surpassing him. It travelled so slowly that he had time to notice its eye resembling an Egyptian painting, or even his late wife’s eye makeup. The bird steered its way up and down on the gull of the wind. He recalled having read somewhere that the albatross stay with its partner for life. What happened if one of them died and the other was left alone? Would it search for another mate to replace the former? Should he? Had he given himself a true and fair chance to continue after what had happened? Paralysed with grief and staggering guilt—how could anyone have done anything differently? He had learnt that there was no such thing as right or wrong. Sleepless nights had after his Prozac years taught him that searching for answers and justifications for what right and wrong might be could turn into a lifelong calling, which was doomed to create even more questions along the way. Ultimately, he had no interest in becoming more confused. He did not feel sufficiently passionate to get intrigued by life’s all twists and turns, yet he did not care enough to put a bullet through his brain. Nights when he infused his whole being in whisky in his bathtub with a Havana cigar in one hand and his late wife’s hair dryer in the other, he felt no desire either to live or to die. The indifference made it all so complex. He simply couldn’t make up his mind. So he puffed smoke rings, drank a bit more, and looked at the hair dryer made in Germany. He pretended to be interested in its construction, the make of its rotating fan, just to kill some time. He had plenty of that. He leaned back, attempting to accidentally slide down into the water to make things more interesting. The biggest challenge of them all was to place him in a situation that did not require him to choose but which would rather force the inevitable upon him. Only by allowing him to become a complete victim could he with all certainty put a definite end to his extended misery.

Since that day, his brain had started to work in increasingly creative ways trying to identify such ways. It had taken him two weeks to complete his plans for the Antarctica challenge. Without any guarantee of it leading him to a perfect ending, he had enhanced the level of challenge by bringing along sufficient quantities of fuel for the heater. Adding on a few other supportive measures, he had brought his great-great-grandfather’s rusty revolver from the Argentine civil war. He had found it in the bottom of a spider-web-entangled chest in his attic, accompanied by a dagger, also owned by one of his grandfathers who had allegedly picked it up from an antique merchant in the Hunza Valley in Pakistan. Finally, he had brought a dozen of sleeping pills, some rat poison from the communal garden shed, and a thin rope. His project was undoubtedly contrived, and it would probably not have made sense to anyone, and that made it feel a bit special. He rejoiced in it, and it made him want to hold on to the sensation it brought in lack of any other.

BUENOS AIRES MEMORIES

34° 36’ 08.5 S, 58° 25’ 54.0 W

LEMAIRE CHANNEL IS A STRAIT OFF THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT. IT WAS FIRST TRAVERSED IN DECEMBER 1898 BY THE DE GERLACHE EXPEDITION. THE EXPEDITION NAMED IT AFTER THE BELGIAN EXPLORER OF THE CONGO, CHARLES LEMAIRE (1863–1925). THE CHANNEL PRESENTS DIFFICULTIES OF NAVIGATION IN EARLY SUMMER SEASON (DECEMBER–APRIL) AS NUMEROUS ICEBERGS FILL THE CHANNEL.

The Antarctic grey embraced him all tighter as he carried through the dull morning mist. The only sound to be heard was the breaking and scattering of a layer of very thin ice within the Lemaire Channel. The surrounding low mountain peaks only emerged momentarily from an elusive shroud of clouds. He was confused to be touched by the tranquillity. This is where life very easily could be mistaken for death, reality for dream. Where was he?

He listened for sounds that would tell. All so quiet. So peaceful. Nothing moved but his boat. He was left standing by the steering wheel without moving. Gasping for the endlessly pure air, watching the bewildering landscape, he forgot his name and the reason for his longing. Bizarre how allowing oneself to be absorbed by it would mean the end. Yet the sheer beauty could make one love. He experienced pain. He thought it might be guilt. Here he was. The scene was lost on him, he persuaded himself. He felt guilt.

*  *  *

He had ended up staying in his parents’ apartment after their passing away. Nothing had been removed from his attic since the day his parents had moved into the apartment. At the age of six, Buenos Aires had entered another era of political and economic turbulence. He did not understand his parents’ vivid discussions about their country’s trade deficit, of course, or the unrest the military brought to the streets as they interfered, serving conservative members and landowners. The coup in 1966 by the armed forces had more or less taken place without him recognising it, maybe because he was too young to realise much about his surroundings, but perhaps also because he had spent many of his weekends at his grandfather in the country where the news did