Chapter 31The Sea Monster

Wednesday, August nineteenth. Luckily the wind, which is pretty wild right now, let us get away from all the craziness. Hans, as always, was super chill at the helm. My uncle, who had been pulled out of his thoughts by what happened at sea, went back to zoning out. His eyes were fixed on the ocean.

Our trip got kinda boring after that. Honestly, I don’t want to repeat yesterday’s drama.

Thursday, August twentieth. The wind’s now coming from the northeast, and it’s all over the place. It's in these sudden bursts. It’s seriously hot out here. We’re going about ten and a half miles an hour.

Around noon, we heard this rumble, like thunder. I just wrote it down without even guessing what it was. It was this constant roar, like the ocean crashing over huge rocks.

"Way out there," the Professor said, "there’s gotta be some rocks or an island where the waves are smashing against it because of the wind."

Hans didn’t say a word, just climbed up the mast, but he couldn’t see anything. The ocean looked flat as far as you could see.

Three hours went by with nothing to show us what was ahead. The sound started to sound like a massive waterfall.

I told my uncle what I thought. He just shook his head. But I’m pretty sure I’m right. Are we heading towards some giant waterfall that’s gonna drop us into the abyss?

The Professor would probably be into that, since it's kinda like the vertical drop he’s always wanting to do. I’m not feeling it, though.

Whatever the truth, it's certain there's gotta be something seriously weird nearby. As we move forward, the roar gets intense - like, really loud. Is it coming from the water, or the air?

I quickly look up at the swirling vapors, trying to see through them. But the sky above is calm. The clouds, way up high, look totally still and frozen, glowing with electric light. So, we need to look somewhere else for the cause.

I check the horizon - it’s super calm, clear, and free of haze. Nothing’s changed. But if this crazy noise is from a waterfall - if, basically, this huge ocean is just dumping into a lower spot - if these massive roars are from water crashing down, the current would pick up.

That would give me an idea of how dangerous this is. I check the current. Nada. An empty bottle floating in the water isn't moving.

Around four o'clock, Hans gets up, climbs the mast, and reaches the very top. From up there, he looks all around. He sees a ton of ocean. Then, his eyes lock onto something. His face doesn't show shock, but his eyes get a little wider.

"He’s seen something, right?" my uncle asked. "I think so," I replied.

Hans climbs down, stands next to us, and points with his right hand to the south. "Der nere," he said. "There," my uncle replied.

He grabs his telescope and looks through it for what feels like forever - a whole minute, seriously. I’m totally clueless about what to think or expect.

"Yes, yes," he shouts, sounding pretty surprised, "there it is." "What?" I asked.

"A huge splash of water shooting up from the waves."

"Some other sea monster," I yelled, already freaked out. "Maybe."

"Then let's head more west, since we know what to expect from ancient animals," I said, super eager.

"Sounds good," my uncle said. I looked over at Hans.

He was at the tiller, steering with his usual chill. Still, if you could see a column of water shooting up from the blowhole of this massive animal - and we were like, a dozen leagues away - it had to be seriously huge. Flying would be the smart thing to do.

But we didn't come all this way to be cautious. That's my uncle’s thing. So, we kept going. The closer we got, the higher the water shot up. What kind of creature could hold that much water and then blast it out in crazy high jets?

By eight PM, using ground-level time, we were only two leagues from the beast. Its long, black, massive, mountain-like body was sitting on top of the water like an island. Sailors have even landed on sleeping whales, thinking they were land. Is this real, or am I just tripping?

It’s gotta be at least a thousand fathoms long. What even is this sea monster - something Cuvier never dreamed of? It’s totally still and looks like it's sleeping. The sea can’t even lift it up; the waves are just crashing against its huge frame.

The waterspout, shooting up five hundred feet, breaks into spray with a low, angry roar. We’re heading straight for it, like total crazies.

I honestly confess I was totally freaked out. I said I wasn’t going any further. I even threatened to cut the sail in my panic, going off on the Professor, calling him reckless, crazy, I don’t even know what. He didn’t say a word.

Suddenly, cool as ever, Hans pointed his finger at that scary thing again: "Holme!"

"An island!" my uncle shouted.

"An island?" I shrugged, like, seriously?

That was a lame attempt to trick me.

"Of course it is," my uncle laughed, super loud and happy. "But the waterspout?" "Geyser," said Hans.

"Yeah, a geyser," my uncle said, still laughing, "like you see all the time in Iceland. These jets are like, huge natural wonders."

At first, I refused to believe I’d been so played. What’s more ridiculous than thinking an island was some giant sea monster? But you gotta accept the facts, and I finally realized I’d totally messed up. It was just a natural thing.

As we got closer, the water column was seriously massive. From far away, the island looked like a giant whale, its head way up out of the water. The geyser - Icelanders call it geysir, which means "fury" - shot up from the top.

You could hear these muffled booms sometimes, and the huge jet, erupting with sudden force, would shake its cloud of vapor and leap into the clouds. It was totally alone. No other steam vents or hot springs nearby, all the volcanic power of that area concentrated in one awesome column.

Electric light mixed with the spray, every drop flashing with rainbow colors as it fell.

"Let’s head to shore," the Professor said after a few minutes of quiet.

It's super important to watch out for falling water, though, or the raft would totally sink. Hans, though, is killing it at steering, and gets us to the other side of the island.

I was the first to jump onto the rock. My uncle followed, while the eider-duck hunter just stood there, like he wasn't even surprised by anything. We were walking on granite mixed with sandstone; the ground felt like it was vibrating - like the sides of a boiler with crazy-hot steam trapped inside.

It’s burning. We quickly spotted the little basin where the geyser was. I stuck a thermometer in the bubbling water, and it read one hundred and sixty-three degrees!

That water had to be coming from somewhere seriously hot. It totally went against Professor Hardwigg’s theories. I couldn't help but tell him what I thought.

"So," he said, kinda sharp, "what does this prove about my ideas?"

"Nothing," I replied, dryly, realizing I was just hitting my head against a wall.

Still, I gotta admit we've been ridiculously lucky so far, and this trip is going really well weather-wise. But it's pretty obvious - basically guaranteed - that we’re gonna reach a place where the heat is off the charts, way beyond anything a thermometer can measure.

I started picturing the underworld from ancient stories, supposedly in the center of the earth.

But, we’ll see what happens. That’s the Professor’s go-to phrase now. After naming the volcanic island after his nephew, the leader of the expedition turned away and signaled for everyone to get back on the raft.

I just stood there, though, staring at this crazy geyser. I noticed the water shooting up wasn't steady - sometimes it’d die down, then suddenly blast off again. I figured it was because of the pressure changing in the underground pocket of steam.

Finally, we headed out, carefully navigating around these jutting, kinda sketchy rocks on the south side. Hans had used the break to fix up the raft.

But before we left the island for good, I took some measurements to figure out how far we’d come, and I wrote it all down in my journal. Since we left Port Gretchen, we'd traveled two hundred and seventy leagues - that’s over eight hundred miles - across this huge inland sea.

So, we were six hundred and twenty leagues from Iceland, and basically right under England.