It was morning, I was in my bunk, I had been asleep, and when I woke up I could feel the movement of the ship. I lay there, blinked a few times, rubbed my eyes, stretched, gathered my thoughts. We weren't supposed to be going anywhere. The previous day we had arrived off Barrow, the northernmost town in the United States, on the Beaufort Sea coast of Alaska. We had dropped anchor that afternoon; we were not scheduled to weigh it for several days, time for new crew to arrive and existing crew to leave, and to change the on-board complement of scientists and journalists. But we were unmistakably on the move. And yet, something about our motion didn't feel right. It was almost as if we were moving ... backward. Frank Kamp, the chief mate, had been the first to spot the impending collision. He had been on anchor watch, alone in the wheelhouse early in the morning, plotting our upcoming course on the chart, keeping the bridge tidy, casting an occasional eye out the window. The watch had been uneventful, as anchor watches often are.
