our air runs out?”
“Okay, okay. But
listen
first. Don’t try to blast out the Holland tunnel. Just melt enough ice so that we have room to spin around in a tight circle and get out the way we came in.”
“Got it.”
“No, you don’t
got it
! Evaporate too much ice in these conditions and it will create a vacuum effect which could suck us in deeper beneath the iceberg.”
He paused as my words sank in. “Tap it and turn. Got it.”
“Not yet, you don’t. This has to be done simultaneously. One of us works the laser; the other jams one foot pedal down to the floor while turning the joystick hard to the same side. But only just enough to turn us 180 degrees, or we’ll spin right back where we started, only deeper.”
The berg groaned around us, sending the internal pod’s psi readings from green to orange.
“Okay, Zach, which one do you want to do?”
“Give me the laser.”
“I wanted to do the laser.”
“What are you, a five-year-old? We need you to steer the damn sub. Now show me how to use the Valkyrie.”
He pointed to an instrument panel on the center console. “The red light means the unit’s powering up. When it turns green, engage the lasers by pressing these two buttons. Press them again to stop the beams.”
I activated the fuel cells and waited, the blood rushing to my head, sweat dripping down my neck into my scalp. “Okay, it’s green. You ready?”
“Yeah. Wait, quick question. If we’re upside down and I want to turn us counterclockwise—”
“Tap your left foot on the throttle and follow it with your joystick.”
“Which is now on my right, right?”
“Right. I mean, yes.”
“Okay, we blast on three. One… two … ”
I stole a quick glance at the starboard Valkyrie, its business end glowing red.
“Three!”
I pressed both buttons. The sea boiled in a veil of orange bubbles as we spun hard seventy degrees counterclockwise and jammed, the wounded iceberg groaning above our feet. We continued firing and throttling until our field of vision yielded deep blue again.
The submersible leaped into the void. Ben executed a quick semi-barrel roll, which returned our world right-side up, then stabilized our yaw by extending the vessel’s pectoral fins.
For several moments we simply laid our heads back and breathed as the sub rose slowly in neutral.
We both jumped as the acrylic dome above our heads collided with a ceiling of sea ice.
“Want to teach me how to use the sonar now, or would you rather wait until you plow us into a wall of glacial ice?”
For the next forty minutes, Ben taught me how to distinguishobjects in the sea using active and passive sonar, as well as how to comprehend the sub’s fuel gauge, battery range, and life-support system readings.
Finally feeling more like a copilot than a passenger, I called out obstacles on sonar while Ben steered us through a frozen labyrinth.
What was it like to dive the Antarctic sea in a submersible? In a word: breathtaking. The extreme cold was an exotic entity of nature that affected everything around us. As sea ice, it formed a seemingly endless ceiling that resembled an overcast December sky, its thicker patches dark and gray, its thinner veils streaked in bolts of neon-blue sunlight. Brine channels hung surreally from the frozen surface like hollow stalactites, their tubular openings bleeding liquid saline into the clear blue underworld.
Below us, bright pink starfish and clumps of anchor ice that resembled crystal tumbleweeds spotted a silt-brown bottom. Every so often a sea urchin or a rock would seem to defy gravity and rise from the sea floor, shanghaied to a glob of ice whose buoyancy would pin it to the ceiling.
Touching the inside surface of the acrylic pod, I could feel the penetrating cold held at bay by technology. Listening to the sea, we heard strange chirping sounds, the mating calls of Weddell seals mixed with the rumblings of grounded icebergs. In the coming weeks the sea ice would crack
“Okay, okay. But
listen
first. Don’t try to blast out the Holland tunnel. Just melt enough ice so that we have room to spin around in a tight circle and get out the way we came in.”
“Got it.”
“No, you don’t
got it
! Evaporate too much ice in these conditions and it will create a vacuum effect which could suck us in deeper beneath the iceberg.”
He paused as my words sank in. “Tap it and turn. Got it.”
“Not yet, you don’t. This has to be done simultaneously. One of us works the laser; the other jams one foot pedal down to the floor while turning the joystick hard to the same side. But only just enough to turn us 180 degrees, or we’ll spin right back where we started, only deeper.”
The berg groaned around us, sending the internal pod’s psi readings from green to orange.
“Okay, Zach, which one do you want to do?”
“Give me the laser.”
“I wanted to do the laser.”
“What are you, a five-year-old? We need you to steer the damn sub. Now show me how to use the Valkyrie.”
He pointed to an instrument panel on the center console. “The red light means the unit’s powering up. When it turns green, engage the lasers by pressing these two buttons. Press them again to stop the beams.”
I activated the fuel cells and waited, the blood rushing to my head, sweat dripping down my neck into my scalp. “Okay, it’s green. You ready?”
“Yeah. Wait, quick question. If we’re upside down and I want to turn us counterclockwise—”
“Tap your left foot on the throttle and follow it with your joystick.”
“Which is now on my right, right?”
“Right. I mean, yes.”
“Okay, we blast on three. One… two … ”
I stole a quick glance at the starboard Valkyrie, its business end glowing red.
“Three!”
I pressed both buttons. The sea boiled in a veil of orange bubbles as we spun hard seventy degrees counterclockwise and jammed, the wounded iceberg groaning above our feet. We continued firing and throttling until our field of vision yielded deep blue again.
The submersible leaped into the void. Ben executed a quick semi-barrel roll, which returned our world right-side up, then stabilized our yaw by extending the vessel’s pectoral fins.
For several moments we simply laid our heads back and breathed as the sub rose slowly in neutral.
We both jumped as the acrylic dome above our heads collided with a ceiling of sea ice.
“Want to teach me how to use the sonar now, or would you rather wait until you plow us into a wall of glacial ice?”
For the next forty minutes, Ben taught me how to distinguishobjects in the sea using active and passive sonar, as well as how to comprehend the sub’s fuel gauge, battery range, and life-support system readings.
Finally feeling more like a copilot than a passenger, I called out obstacles on sonar while Ben steered us through a frozen labyrinth.
What was it like to dive the Antarctic sea in a submersible? In a word: breathtaking. The extreme cold was an exotic entity of nature that affected everything around us. As sea ice, it formed a seemingly endless ceiling that resembled an overcast December sky, its thicker patches dark and gray, its thinner veils streaked in bolts of neon-blue sunlight. Brine channels hung surreally from the frozen surface like hollow stalactites, their tubular openings bleeding liquid saline into the clear blue underworld.
Below us, bright pink starfish and clumps of anchor ice that resembled crystal tumbleweeds spotted a silt-brown bottom. Every so often a sea urchin or a rock would seem to defy gravity and rise from the sea floor, shanghaied to a glob of ice whose buoyancy would pin it to the ceiling.
Touching the inside surface of the acrylic pod, I could feel the penetrating cold held at bay by technology. Listening to the sea, we heard strange chirping sounds, the mating calls of Weddell seals mixed with the rumblings of grounded icebergs. In the coming weeks the sea ice would crack
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