Polar Icebreaker Healy

The Arctic sky was pale blue with thin smears of cirrus clouds. When Jack focused his lens straight ahead, the white irregular shapes of ice floes alternated with dark water like white and black cowhide. Yet, when he looked down at the submerged ice, Jack saw gradations of some of the most beautiful blue-green colors nature had to offer.

        Jack spotted a group of walruses all trying to clamor onto a wide, anemic floe. They used their tusks like pick axes, but the ice was too weak and broke under their weight. A lone bull, farther in the distance, managed to find a small floe strong enough to support him. He sat atop it and watched Healy pass. Jack focused in on his blunt, whiskered snout and rolls of blubber. Never had such a cuddly animal looked so solemn. 

        Are we all goners? Jack wanted to ask him.

        Of course humanity had to come to an end one day—everything did. Didn’t it?

        Two crewman walked behind Jack as he snapped pictures.

        “Shoulda been more ice at this latitude,” one said to the other. “Least, that’s how I remember it.”

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THE REAL HEALY

Visit the U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area site for information on the real USCG Cutter Healy and its scientific missions in Arctic.