Chappel Island Trip
January 5, 1959
From my memory in 2007
By Sebastian Borrello
Two hours of intense fright in a sinking boat on the east coast of Antarctica etched so deeply into my memory that it is still all too easy to relive the experience.
It was Antarctic summer in January 1959. Dean Denison the aurora specialist and I had finished counting penguins in the three rookeries on Chappel Island, and were waiting for Dick Robertson to finish his geology survey. The light breeze had shifted from east to north east and the sea looked calm, pretty much as it did when we came over from Wilkes Base about 6 miles south by south east. Stretching across this distance is Iceberg Alley, an archipelago of small white islands broken from the Vanderford Glacier, drifting north and grounded on shallow reefs. Most icebergs were still flat on top, but some had melted enough to tumble on their sides and get caught again on the shoals twenty to fifty feet deep. Dean and I loaded our gear into the 17 foot dory in which the base carpenter had built a motor well about two-thirds back from the bow. The dory was a tough little boat with lapstrake hull, a three foot forward deck and a tacked-on canvas rub rail over the gunwales. Willis Tressler, oceanographer and Science Leader, fit it out with a 10 horsepower Mercury outboard he brought to Wilkes.
To count penguins Dean and I would stand at a high point above a rookery of squawking penguins and count by twos. We would average our counts which were usually surprisingly close. There were nearly 800 Adelie penguins on Chappel Island. Finally Dick came along, packed in his Brunton compass, pack and survey pole. Between rookeries, Dean and I would take turns with the survey pole. As we pushed off from the west side of Chappel we went around the north side to see if we might have missed a rookery. Then as we cleared the northeast point the breeze suddenly stiffened and the waves came up quickly to three feet high. Sudden onset of gravity driven wind off the continent is common enough since there is nothing to break the fall of air as it slides down over the ice from five thousand feet elevation. On our southeast bearing to Wilkes Base the waves were left to right, slamming the hull and coming over the side. Dick at the motor turned the boat to quarter the waves, which stopped the slamming, but now the sea water was gushing up out of the well as we bottomed in each trough. We tried to make for the lee side of an iceberg for protection but we were taking on too much water. Dean started pumping with the hand bailer, and I bailed with a small bucket. Soon we were ankle deep and Chappel was too far back and upwind. We were being pushed seaward.
Dick yelled out over the motor and wind noise that we needed to stop the gushing from the well. He had to adjust steering and speed constantly to lessen the impact of each wave. He also had to maneuver the dory around large chunks of floating ice. We could not bail fast enough and the water deepened. Soon the wind was blowing the tops off the whitecaps and a bitter cold spray blew into the boat in gusts. We needed a piece of canvas and the only one at hand was my Army issued field jacket. I pulled it off and told Dick to wrap it around the motor. Just then the motor quit. As we rode the waves sideways Dean and I dug tacks out of the canvas rub rail with our hunting knives. We also shifted our weight side to side to lessen the roll and prevent swamping. Dick pounded the tacks through my jacket into the top of the well using the butt of his knife. Many tacks later, the water stopped gushing. Dean and I went back to bailing. Dick pulled the motor rope. The motor wouldn't start. He pulled again and again. Dean and I were busy bailing, but I was really scared. Our bailing was working, but the wind was heading us away from the Windmill Islands and home base. Finally with a sputter and rumble the motor came to life. Dick quartered the waves once again. However, by now they were another foot higher with foamy white tops. Each bite of the dory into a wave brought more wind carried spray into the boat. I was wet and cold and shaking as I continued to bail. Dean looked sick, but he continued to pump. As we went up I could clearly see Clark Is, home base, and in a trough I could see only angry water. Now Dick was controlling the Merc with his left hand and bailing with his right. It went on this way for awhile and then later I thought I saw Dick smiling, his teeth showing through his scraggly beard. Then he started singing. I thought he lost it until I realized we were getting ahead of the incoming water. It's always nice to have an optimist along. About a mile out from the base the waves dropped off to two feet and the spray stopped. I crawled under the little deck shivering, but greatly relieved we had survived. As we beached the dory at the landing ramp, I stepped out too soon and got a boot full of water. The 31 degree water numbed my foot telling me that if we had capsized or got swamped it would have been a rapid death for the three of us.
Years later I learned from Dean he was in a state of silent prayer during our ordeal. I confessed that I too was asking the Almighty for our lives. Dick admitted he thought the boat would swamp. He said we went out with only two life jackets, so one of us would have been lucky enough to drown and the other two would have died of exposure. Dick always had a great sense of humor. We told Tressler the surveys went well, and that we had a bit of rough water on the way back. Can you fool an old oceanographer? He puffed on his cigar, looked at our soaking wet clothes, and asked if we had enjoyed the whitecaps. Although this happened nearly 49 years ago, it might as well have been last week.
Sebastian was the base geomagnetician, measuring variations in the Earth's magnetic field During the Second International Geophysical Year.