Arctic Solitaire. Paul Souders

this trip.

      Hell, I was not good enough to be so far out past the edge.

      At long last, I made it back to the shelter of C-Sick, curled into my sleeping bag, and fell into a deep sleep. There was just enough tide, wind, and current to send the boat rocking on her anchor. I dreamed, not of flying, but of a sort of low-gravity soaring walk down some strange sidewalk. I imagined floating up and gliding impossibly far with each step. It’s a dream I have only on boats, only when the world is rolling beneath me.

      When I first imagined this trip, I expected to arrive at the ice edge, tie up to some convenient berg, then drift along for many happy and bear-filled days. As I looked around at the endless expanse of water, the notion seemed laughable. My inner voice of reason—along with its ugly second cousin, chickenshit cowardice—shouted down any talk of death or glory. I looked at my drained fuel tanks then looked at the charts and knew that it was time to move on. I danced the points of my nautical calipers end over end until I measured the distance to Cape Churchill. It was 113 miles, and thirty more to reach town. All in all, the better part of twenty hours’ travel.

      I set off and motored for hours on a northwest course through the middle of a flat, infinite plane, the sea calm, like a pool of liquid metal, reaching away toward infinity. By evening, distant forest fire haze turned the sun into a copper penny orb and a breeze began to stir, building choppy waves. I pushed on until nearly midnight, then shut down the engines and let the boat drift. I was desperate for sleep, but every time I dozed off, C-Sick