Conquering the Impossible by Mike Horn Page B

Angmagssalik, but I do. My friend Robert Peroni lives there. I had asked him to procure the permits necessary for crossing Greenland. Unfortunately, Robert had informed me by radio a few days ago that things were becoming more complicated than he expected and that I was going to have to wait there for a month before I could hope to have the necessary permit. I was furious, but I wasn’t about to turn back a second time. I decided to go on.
    With the background noise of the constant chugging of the engine running constantly to operate the electric pump, I discovered the savage beauty of the immense cliffs of Greenland, those gloomy walls of rock topped with snow. My readings of Nansen’s memoirs resurfaced in my mind, stimulating my imagination, and I felt as if I could see the great explorer paddling across these same roaring waters, he and his men dreaming that they would be the first to cross this wild land.
    The wind shifted suddenly, and enormous sheets of pack ice began to drift southward, following the same course I was. Pushed by winds out of the west, these huge sheets of ice are driven out into the open ocean where they ultimately melt. But now they were pushing back in the opposite direction, and I found myself caught between the coastal cliffs and blocks of pack ice many miles in length. I could sail out of this situation, but I didn’t want to run the risk of heading back out into open sea. I preferred to stay close to dry land. Here at least, should the worst case arise—that is, if I was forced to abandon ship—I could still reach the mainland with my equipment and continue on my way. And from my point of view, that was the only thing that mattered.
    The battle lasted five days and five nights. All sails set, I slipped among the icebergs, ramming slabs of ice that lifted the boat up and then let it drop again with a thump. Wedged between the granite cliffs and the giant blocks of pack ice, I tacked and veered to avoid being crushed or colliding with the icebergs which, just to make things harder, did not always seem to move with the wind or the current. In fact, the immense segment of the iceberg that jutted out of the water acted like a sail, with the same angles of thrust. It was impossible to think of abandoning the helm, and so I struggled to fight off sleep. But fear, and the need to bail constantly to reduce the level of the water that was once again filling my cockpit, were enough for the most part to keep me wide awake.
    When I could no longer stay awake, I would drive the boat onto one of the little flat ice floes and leave it grounded there, bow in the air. I would let the boat drift with the floe, confident that it wouldn’t collide with anything for the time being. That would let me close my eyes for minutes, even hours, until the hull of my boat would finally slip off the floe by itself. The smack of the hull hitting water would wake me up, and I would set off again, taking care not to run into any of the many icebergs lurking in the fog.
    When I finally sighted the fishermen’s houses of Angmagssalik, little multicolored wooden boxes scattered on the ice high atop the cliff, I felt as if I had been saved by a miracle. I had sailed along the Greenland coast for hundreds of miles; I was completely exhausted, half-asleep at the helm; my hull was full of water and badly dented from all the collisions; but I had arrived.
    My crew landed at Angmagssalik the same day, after a journey that had certainly been less trying than mine.
    Before leaving Switzerland, Jean-Philippe had placed a small classified ad in the newspapers: “Wanted: volunteers to take Mike Horn’s boat around Greenland.” He had received twenty-four responses and had chosen two prospective pilots. Angelo and Pierre-Yves arrived with him. Dominique, another companion, was waiting in Switzerland so that we could send him a detailed order for other spare parts and tools to bring on a later