Wind, Fire, and Ice - by Robert M Bunes (Hardcover)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>Between 1955 and 1987, the United States Coast Guard Cutter Glacier was the largest and most powerful icebreaker in the free world. Consequently, it was often given the most difficult and dangerous Antarctic missions. This is the dramatic first-person account of its most legendary voyage. In 1970, the author was the Chief Medical Officer on the Glacier when it became trapped deep in the Weddell Sea, pressured by 100 miles of wind-blown icepack. Glacier was beset within seventy miles of where Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, was imprisoned in 1915. His stout wooden ship succumbed to the crushing pressure of the infamous Weddell Sea pack ice and sank, leading to an unbelievable two-year saga of hardship, heroism and survival. The sailors aboard the Glacier feared they would suffer Shackleton's fate, or one even worse. Freakishly good luck eventually saved the Glacier from destruction in the crushing ice pack, only to experience a three-hour fire that nearly killed one of the crew, followed by eighty foot waves that came close to capsizing the ship. Wind, Fire, and Ice is a story about a physician who starts out with a set of false assumptions--namely that he is going have an easy assignment and see numerous exotic ports, but then slowly comes to realize a much different hard reality.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br>Between 1955 and 1987, the United States Coast Guard Cutter Glacier was the largest and most powerful icebreaker in the free world. Consequently, it was often given the most difficult and dangerous Antarctic missions. This is the dramatic first-person account of its most legendary voyage. In 1970, the author was the Chief Medical Officer on the Glacier when it became trapped deep in the Weddell Sea, pressured by 100 miles of wind-blown icepack. Glacier was beset within seventy miles of where Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, was imprisoned in 1915. His stout wooden ship succumbed to the crushing pressure of the infamous Weddell Sea pack ice and sank, leading to an unbelievable two-year saga of hardship, heroism and survival. The sailors aboard the Glacier feared they would suffer Shackleton's fate, or one even worse. Freakishly good luck eventually saved the Glacier from destruction, but the story is told as the author, who was not part of the chain of command, experienced it. More imminent threats later occurred involving a three-hour inferno, as well as eight-story waves that drove the ship to the brink of disaster. Wind, Fire, and Ice is the story about a physician fresh-out-of-internship who naïvely assumes he is going to have an easy assignment and see numerous exotic ports. Instead, he experiences adventures and adversities beyond his imagination, as well as jarring conflicts with an obsessed captain.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>A brilliant slice of Polar history. Written by Dr Robert Bunes, the ships doctor on board of the icebreaker Glacier in the early 70s, he takes the reader on a journey into the icy waters of Antarctica. There his ship, 'the largest, toughest and most powerful icebreaker in the free world, is besieged in the ice pack of the Weddell sea. Ironically this modern wonder of power is stuck exactly in the same location where Shacklton's Endurance was crushed. Bunes does a fine job documenting the past history of ships that entered Antarctic's ice pack and what happen in these socially isolated conditions where leadership is stretched to its very limits and often snaps. --Will Steger, world famous Polar explorer A tour of duty on an icebreaker bound for Antarctica, after stopping at a number of exotic ports, sounds like an easy travel adventure to the young doctor, Bob Bunes. He reports for duty with a paisley surfboard, a set of skis, and high hopes, only to find a ship with no medical supplies and inadequate equipment, eventually headed for the Weddell Sea, and what Sir Earnest Shackleton called "the worst part of the worst ocean on earth." The weight of having ultimate medical responsibility for a 200-man crew in the most remote part of the world hits the doctor like a tsunami wave. Nothing in his training prepares him for a host of medical emergencies he later faces, like preforming surgery on a violently tossing ship or resuscitating a sailor in the middle of a massive shipboard fire. A collision with an immovable ice mountain tears a gash in the side of the ship and makes the vessel all the more vulnerable when it is later confronted with hurricane-force winds that flatten the vessel or wind-driven ice that imprisons the ship and threatens to crush it. The ship-captain's obsession with retrieving a set of oceanographic buoys and his last-ditch efforts at becoming an admiral leads to perilous lapses in his judgement. As the danger mounts, the doctor and the captain move ever closer to open conflict over the welfare of the crew. This riveting true-life tale of crisis and adventure grips the reader from the first page to the last. The extreme conditions of the Antarctic are vividly drawn, as is the fragility and tenacity of human life in the face of unimaginably stark circumstances. A must-read! ---Ellen Keigh, author of Streets of Silver<br><br>"Fresh out of his internship and hoping to see the world, Dr. Robert Bunes, signs up for a seven-month cruise on a Coast Guard icebreaker. What follows is a harrowing tale of paralyzing Antarctic ice sheets, a life-threatening shipboard fire, and a collision with an iceberg." Pamela Nagami MD, author of "The Woman with the Worm in her Head" and "Bitten"<br><br>Dr. Robert Bunes has written a fascinating account of his adventures as the physician assigned to a Coast Guard icebreaker, USCGC GLACIER, on an operation in the Wedell Sea. This is the same Sea in which Sir Ernest Shackleton came to an unhappy end, losing his ENDURANCE . The title refers to storms, a fire, and the possibility of achieving the same end as ENDURANCE. But it is also a story of differences of personalities, differences of attitudes, and differences of approach to life post Viet Nam. The book is of particular interest to me because I have also commanded in Antarctica, know and have sailed with one of the main personalities, have worked for another, and have encountered many of the same problems faced by GLACIER and her doughty crew. My approach to leadership problems and operational problems was different than the Good Doctor encountered. Not necessarily better, just different. And I have never had to deal personally with a fire at sea. But I have drilled and trained all of my crews for this, as did the command in GLACIER. I recommend this book to all who have sailed in the deep ice, who have encountered differences with their Captain in particular, and who have solved leadership and operational problems. And that is just about all of us! Captain Joe-Joseph H. Wubbold III CAPT USCG (Ret)<br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Robert Bunes is a writer, filmmaker, retired physician, adventurer, and avid traveler. He has traveled to all seven continents and has sailed to within 400 miles of the North Pole and to the southern edge of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. Dr. Bunes grew up in Minnesota but ski-bummed in Colorado, surfed in Mexico, worked as a general Practitioner in Maine, and taken a sabbatical in Paris. Following his work in general medicine, he completed a psychiatry residency at UCLA and finished his medical career as a legal psychiatrist, specializing in civil litigation. He now lives in the coastal mountains of Southern California with his wife, not far from his daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren. When not writing, traveling, or spending time with family, he likes to golf, swim, garden, cook, or trade stories with friends. His first book, Yellowstone's Restless "Savages", a semifictional work based on the four summers he worked in Yellowstone, will soon be joined by a fictional work, Will White Eagle and the Mystery of the Missing Medicine Man. Visit him at robertbunesmd.com, view his films on YouTube or contact him at rbunes@gmail.com.
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