Berserk in the Antarctic (eBook)

'This is suicide!' Manuel screamed frantically. 'We've got togo back before it's too late!'He grabs me by the collar with both hands balled into fistslike a madman and shakes wildly. Though he is shoutingright in my face, the wind blows so fiercely, so loudly, I canbarely hear him. We are in the middle of a hurricane, ridingit out on the swamped decks of a tiny sailing boat, a speckin a sea of madness. A week earlier, none of us had ever metbefore - and now we are reliant upon each other, and uponthis fragile, dilapidated boat, for our lives.Maybe he is right. Maybe we are going to die. We are beingsmacked flush in the face by a major hurricane-strengthstorm just south of Cape Horn, like we have walked intothe ring against the heavyweight champion of the world andare getting punched right in the nose before having a chanceto lift a glove. We are on our way to Antarctica in a 27-footfibreglass sailing boat our 21-year-old Norwegian captainnamed Berserk. It's our first day out at sea, the first timeManuel and I have really sailed, and the seas are enormous.The waves tower high over the mast and break down uponus constantly, tossing the boat over on its side. We're alwaysone wave away from capsizing. We've reached a point beyond fear. No longer do I fightDeath - I have accepted it. I just don't want to die withManuel screaming in my ear, that's all. I met him ten minutesbefore we got on board - ten minutes before we met Jarle.We're three strangers out here at sea doing battle with theworst possible conditions in the world, but for some oddreason, I'm still happy. The question is: why?Manuel gets right up in my face and shouts again. 'We'regoing to fucking die!' His eyes look like overweight Marinerecruit Private Pyle's in the Stanley Kubrick film Full MetalJacket right before he blows his drill sergeant to oblivion.He loosens his grip but his eyes remain the same. 'Jarle,we've got to go back!' he shouts up to the captain. He franticallybounces around the inside of the cabin like a cockroach,grabbing onto anything he can hold in the storm.He tries to reason with me. 'David, he's just a boy. He'sonly a boy,' he explains quietly and calmly. 'He's only twentyone.Remember all the mistakes you made at that age?' Hespeaks with reason and assuredness that are not called forduring such a harrowing scene, in such a difficult moment.It is almost eerie, a moment of quiet in the middle of raging,deafening violence - as unnatural and disconcerting as thepanicked shouting.Manuel doesn't let up. 'He didn't listen to the report,'he shrieks. 'He knew we were heading out into a storm.'Manuel thinks he's crazy. Is that true? No way. As Jarle likesto say: 'Crazy, but not stupid.' He would never intentionallyhead out into this. No right-thinking human would.