Add this to Your Bucket List!!!!!

Lots of people talk about their bucket lists! Personally I have never had a particular bucket list, there were a few things I wanted to do and places I wanted to visit. However if they didn’t happen it would have not been a disaster. I did do one thing that few others can claim to have done. I surfaced through the Arctic ice cap aboard the submarine Alcide. Not a big deal if you google submarines under the ice, Numerous submarines have done this, mainly US, Russians and British but they were all nuclear submarines. It was considered a huge achievement when the USS Nautilus transitioned under the Arctic ice. Little was ever mentioned about us or other British diesel electric submarines going under the ice cap. The big difference between a nuke and a diesel was the need for the latter to surface to replenish its air supply. We surfaced under the ice in 1964, it was an amazing adventure and we played football on the surface. There was ice as far as the eye could see. We had a sentry posted on the fin with a 303 rifle on polar bear watch. We thankfully never saw any polar bears and we didn’t play football for very long either, it was damn cold!!. We had no special Arctic survival clothing in those days just our parka’s and sea boots. The conditions inside the boat was most unpleasant, with the extreme cold water temperature outside the hull and the heat inside the boat caused condensation like it was raining, I had to sleep with my oilskin coat over me trying to keep dry. It was amazing adventure that only a few other submariners from my era can claim to have done.
God Bless and keep reading.