Bear Grylls (46 page)

Now my life was different. I was a husband and a father. I had much more to lose. I was no longer prepared to die up a mountain. Shara and Jesse had given me life after Dad passed on. I had
everything to live for, and I wanted to stay alive. The idea of taking that level of risk again terrified me.

I didn’t even know what the risks were here. No one did. So few people had tried to cross the North Atlantic in an open RIB that there were no stark statistics like the one in eight
fatalities on Everest. There was nothing: no quantifiable ratio, no survival odds, just the unknown.

I tried to look for the positives. I tried to tell myself that my new family would make me more cautious, more determined to get home safely. But I wasn’t sure that I believed it.

Only a matter of days before we were due to leave, I woke up in the middle of the night and knew I should a write a letter to Shara, just in case. I’d hand this letter to my best buddy,
Charlie Mackesy, and ask him to give it to her only in one event – if I didn’t come home. It was the hardest letter I have ever written. As I wrote, my palms clammy with sweat, the
night seemed to stand still. I was confronting the worst option and trying to deal with the consequences. All the time I was praying – praying my wife would never have to read these
words.

The last two years had been hard for Shara. And I owe her so much. It’s obviously not ideal for any new mother that her husband should have to be away when their child is so small; and
it’s definitely not ideal that ‘away’ should mean setting off across a dangerous ocean in a small, open boat. Yet as the days neared we somehow never spoke of saying goodbye. It
was our unwritten rule.

Charlie, Shaun White,
the boat-builder, and I were due to fly from Heathrow to Nova Scotia on the Monday evening. Andy had already been there for three days, preparing
the boat, while Mick and Nige were going to fly a day later. On the Friday evening, Shara gave me a little photograph album she had made, full of pictures of her and Jesse. It was beautiful.

Early the following morning I woke early and spoke for the first time into the Dictaphone that would be my companion for so much of the time ahead.

As a team we had agreed to take $10,000 in cash, just in case we found ourselves in situations where perhaps a fisherman or a helicopter pilot, or anyone, needed some persuading. I wandered down
to the bank and collected the money. It was a beautiful summer’s day, and I was wearing just an old pair of shorts. I collected the money, and also bought a crate of Bell’s whisky from
the off-licence next door. With dollars and whisky, we now had international currency.

I played a last game of squash with Danny, the secondhand car dealer who plays a wily game with me several times a week. Afterwards he said, very gently, ‘You know, Bear, I really
don’t want you to go.’

I just smiled back.

‘Can’t I just puncture the boat or something?’ he asked.

In the afternoon we gathered everything Shara and Jesse needed to take to her mother’s house and packed it into our car. We laughed. They were going down to the country with all seventeen
suitcases. I was going across the North Atlantic, and I had two small bags.

Sunday drifted by. The sun shone, Charlie Mackesy came down, and we all lay on the grass and drank tea. I went for a walk with Shara and held her hand as I love to do. And then it was time to
leave for the airport.

British Airways had generously provided our one-way tickets to Canada and they had kindly offered to show us around the weather centre at their headquarters at Heathrow before we left. As we
approached their corporate headquarters, I saw a welcoming party of BA staff, dressed in hats and uniforms. It was a lovely gesture on their part, but my mind was elsewhere. They were all
watching.

I gave Jesse a little kiss, then turned to face Shara. She was crying already.

‘Trust me, my love, all will be fine.’

I held her tight to try to stop the tears.

‘We’ll be safe and back together in no time. I promise.’

It was a promise I knew wasn’t mine to make.

As we toured round BA’s Compass House, I was in a daze. I couldn’t take anything in. All I could think about was them both driving home, and Shara being so afraid. But I didn’t
know what else I could do. It was time to be a leader now, time to make sure we did this job properly, time to make sure I was right when I promised her we’d be OK. It was time to look
ahead.

When we eventually reached the check-in area, I received a text message from my sister Lara saying she hoped everything would go ‘swimmingly’. It was quite funny.

My great-uncle Edward, aged ninety-three, called soon afterwards to wish me well. ‘God bless you,’ he said very slowly, and then he added in the softest and most tender of voices,
‘We do so love you.’

What a gorgeous man he is.

I was feeling pretty drained, physically and emotionally, by the time Charlie and I settled into our seats. BA had put us in business class and we were soon being spoiled with champagne and
food. Charlie was really buzzing, chatting to the crew about the expedition and generally enjoying every minute. He was in heaven. He eventually fell asleep snoring.

I just sat quietly, alone with my thoughts, staring out of the window. Now and then I could see the ocean, briefly visible between the clouds, and watch the white horses far below. I eventually
closed my eyes as well, warm and snug, knowing that the way home would be a very different story.

A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.

Ronald Reagan

Even if all five of us
had been born and bred in Halifax, Nova Scotia, it is hard to imagine how the people of this open-hearted Canadian city could have been more
hospitable and supportive. The fact was that we were five British men who happened to have chosen their city as the starting point of our transatlantic expedition, and we had certainly not
expected, nor did we deserve, the warm generosity shown to us by so many people.

Our boat, the
Arnold and Son Explorer
, was moored at the central quay in the middle of a waterfront development, and as soon as one of us stepped past the spectators to go aboard, we were
asked for autographs and quizzed about the boat.

We were given free use of two nearby apartments for as long as we needed, and local officers of the Canadian navy gave us 3,000 litres of fuel, for which they refused to let us pay. Ordinary
citizens of Halifax seemed drawn to the boat, coming to wish us well, offering us some piece of advice about the waters ahead. We were showered with kindness and all felt looked after and
special.

Andy had already spent three days out here before us and seemed to have become something of a local celebrity through his press and television interviews. It was great to see. He was clearly
enjoying himself and, just as I had hoped, he had really started to take ownership of his part of the expedition.

Amid the high spirits, though, there was plenty of work to be done to get the boat ready, and it soon became clear Andy had done a superb job in this respect as well. He had fitted a new
alternator the day before we arrived, and it seemed to have solved a last-minute issue we had had with a faulty power supply. The boat was neatly stowed with most of the kit, apart from our
personal stuff, and she looked fantastic. I felt so proud and very protective.

She had started out as a rough idea in our minds, advanced to the drawing board, been to the Boat Show, on to the sea trials, across the Atlantic in the huge container ship, and now here she
stood in pride of place on the Halifax waterfront.

The food packages had been carefully sorted out into days, and Andy had been meticulous in making sure that everything was neat and tidy on board. That was important to me. Even before the
building process was complete, I had gone out and bought more than 100 bungee elastic cords, and roll after roll of Gaffa sticky tape. Andy had laughed incessantly about this.

‘I hope that crane is strong enough when she is lifted over the docks,’ I said, as our pride and joy first went into the water in Portsmouth.

‘Well, we could always bungee or Gaffa tape her together if it isn’t,’ Andy instantly replied.

Whatever we were doing on the boat, there was always a bungee near at hand. It became a running joke. In my experience, the army would grind to a halt if it wasn’t for bungees and Gaffa
tape. They are the meat and drink of any unit.

‘We’ll use ’em all,’ I would always reply.

And I was right. By the end of the expedition, when we were finally packing up in Scotland, I took immense satisfaction from seeing Andy rummaging around in the hold of the boat, looking for a
bungee to keep his holdall together, and then hearing him say, ‘I don’t believe it. We’re out of bungees.’

Come Halifax, the stores were all lashed neatly down in place. Nothing could budge. The bungees were all working.

We knew we were going to be thrown around violently on the ocean, so everything needed to be really well secured. The flares, the food, the spares, everything – even down to the box of ear
defenders that were never used. (This was because they made us sick, as they took away our instinctive balance.) The sea anchor was neatly folded and stowed ready for deployment and, all in all,
our little yellow boat looked ready for anything. It was a fantastic sight.

I had brought with me around forty laminated stickers, featuring little motivational slogans, which I placed in strategic positions around the boat. All of the guys teased me incessantly about
these. They told me they were quite unBritish, but I thought these sayings would help us get through when times were tough.

They served their purpose well, although I did concede that the sticker reading, ‘Make sure you watch the sunset once a year – it will give you a whole new perspective on life’
was starting to wear a little thin by the end. As Charlie wryly pointed out at the end of the 3,000 miles: ‘Well, that’s my sunsets done for the next twenty years.’

Our entire experience in Halifax was facilitated by the enthusiastic support of one of our lead sponsors, General Motors (Canada). I had made a speech at a GM conference in Italy some time
before, and they had agreed to take one of the £15,000 sponsorship packages. They also effectively adopted this stage of the expedition, helping to generate publicity, raising money for a
local charity – the Nova Scotia Sailing School, which teaches local kids how to build a boat and take trips into the wilderness (not round the Arctic if they’ve got any sense!) –
and also hosting a farewell banquet for 500 people the night before we were to leave.

It was an emotional occasion. I had been asked to speak and accepted, even though I knew I would be speaking at about 3 a.m. British time, which I was still on, having arrived the day
before.

The worst thing about speaking after dinner, though, is that it ruins your appetite. ‘So much for taking this last chance to bulk up,’ I thought, as I nervously played with my
steak.

In fact I was too nervous to eat at all. It’s weird how, after all the speeches I make – almost a hundred a year – I still get terrified. I dread those moments before you stand
up, that silence as all eyes are on you, that intensity, but I guess to do it well you have to
use
that intensity. It’s any speaker’s best tool.

The first speaker was Michael Grimaldi, the president of General Motors (Canada), and he spoke concisely and directly about his company’s pioneering spirit and how it constantly aimed to
push back the boundaries in the automotive industry.

Then I stood up. All I really wanted to say was this: how so often people look at us and think that we are the pioneers and the guys breaking new boundaries, but it’s not really true. In
truth we are just normal guys who have been given a chance, a chance to follow a dream made possible by the likes of them. ‘I’m not feeling very oratory-like right now,’ I went
on. ‘I am nervous and we leave in only a few hours. But what I really want to say is thank you. It’s because of your pioneering spirit that we are here. And when it comes down to those
crunch times, somewhere out there in the waves and ice, the times when it really matters, I hope we can show that same spirit; and that we come home safe and can say, “We did you proud as
well.” Thank you.’

I sat down relieved, my job done. It was our last night, and I needed a bar and a strong drink.

As we left we said our thanks and farewells to the president of General Motors, and on the spur of the moment I offered him a quick spin on the boat the following day before we left.

‘Unfortunately I am flying back to Toronto for a meeting tomorrow morning,’ he said.

I paused, then asked again. ‘How about doing it early?’

‘That would be wonderful,’ he smiled.

So at 6 a.m. the following day, in a crisp early-morning chill, under a clear Halifax sky, three of us took GM’s president around the harbour. We were flying along over still, glassy seas
at 25 knots. We watched the first of those sunrises, and it was a magical time.

Just before nine o’clock
on that morning of Thursday, 31 July 2003, with barely an hour left before our scheduled departure, we were all sitting quietly around the
boat, waiting. This was a rare period of calm and, in crisp sunshine, I decided it was the ideal time to convey a message. Standing on the bow, I asked Andy, Nige, Mick and Charlie for their
attention. They turned to face me.