And, as McQ says -soooo near and sooooo far to go - about 25 miles of ice...
We will probably stop in Gjoa Haven for a day or so to do a couple of fixes and watch the ice.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
We've been astonishingly lucky so far with both wind and ice but that may be about to change. If it does, the level of risk increases daily that we will not be able to cross the 25 mile stretch of ice in Franklin that may be all that is stopping us from getting through. And if that happens, we have to get back to somewhere safe before the sea starts to freeze again and the temperature to plummet. In that case we would try to get back to CB with Gjoa Haven as a last resort. Lots of factors - for instance, we can possibly lift Berri out of the water in CB.
We're not short of advice - I am talking on the radio twice daily with Peter Semotiuk in CB - legendary sailor and helper of yachts in the NWP - and with Amodino, Arctic Wanderer and Tyhina, who is in Resolute and heading west. Also talking once a day with Pat Hahn in Nome on the satphone to get his take on things.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Thanks to Corey for his hospitality and help while we were in CB, and to the RCMP for being cool about our unorthodox arrival. And to Matt for playing around with google earth.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
El - if we do leave tomoz, I'll be really sorry to miss you. One of those times when the diem has to be carped with attitude. Find Peter S. - I may be able to leaver stuff with him. xx
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Anyway, we are crawling towards CB in relative time.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Later - now 1528Z @ 6826 11310 unable send this stuff by sailmail - will try iridium. Around the next corner, past big DEW line station at Becher Point. I wonder whether anyone saw us go by about a mile offshore.
Pat, tks for wx and ice - pse copy to speedy as well. We must organise an iridium sked for the next bit.
About 180 to CB
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
These will be short from here to CB and perhaps beyond. Hoping to meet Eleanor, via HMP and Resolute, in CB. That would be a special r/v!
Carla, Spaceman up there supervising! Lerizhan, perhaps?
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
If we not there, find Amodino - big green 2 masted yacht - they will be there before us - if they intend to stay, they would prob be happy to offer bench to sleep on. Also Peter Semotiuk.
xx
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
There is no ice between here and Cambridge Bay and I don't yet know what there is to the east of CB. From CB, we can go either side of King William Island (the east side is usually better but it's further) and then, if we can get that far, we can go through Bellot Strait if it's open, or stay in Peel Sound up to Lancaster Sound. Lancaster gets us out into the Baffin Sea... The south side of Bellot is the northernmost point of the North American mainland and it marks the north end of the Boothia Peninsula, aptly named after a George (I think) Booth who financed a Franklin rescue mission but, more importantly, founded the Booth's Dry Gin distillery.
If - big if! - we can get to Lancaster, with time to spare, we'll go to Beechey Island and leave some beer for the HMP mob to collect next year and pay our respects to John Torrington and his fellow corpses.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
As you will have gathered, Amundsen Gulf is misbehaving. However, having now read Charlie Brower's book once more, I will never ever bleat again about things being difficult. This gig has been a stroll in the sunshins compared to what first the Eskimos and then Charlie and his contemporaries achieved up here. Three incidents that are almost incomprehensible to this modern softy - when he had to sew up his trouser seams to stay alive at 50 below, his 12 days leading a party off the ice from the Narchuk and the journeys of his 2 messengers from Barrow to the 'outside' midwinter to take news of the rescue of ships crews. Intelligent, ingenious, resilient improvisation to make use of what was available for survival.
Eleanor - half a chance, AGW that we could be in on the 9th or earlier.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Since coming on deck, I've watched the windex circle the mast-top aimlessly to the point that I've given up on sailing altogether and have dropped the mainsail too. At least we're motoring in the right direction! I'm now brewing a coffee and hiding from the rain - Corrie forgot to mention the big grey cloud that caught up with us on the watch change, probably part of the reason she headed to her bunk cackling.
If I turned the boat 90 degrees to starboard now while everyone else is asleep, I could hijack Berri and head down to the Smoking Hills at the bottom of Franklin Bay. Unfortunately, they're too far off our track and the others would be well and truly awake before we got there. Pity, sounds like a fascinating place.
Not really a lot else to report - just waiting for the wind to fill in so we can keep pootling across Amundsen Gulf. And today's shade of grey of course! The sea started out as liquid mercury at the other end of the day, with hints of pink and blue as the sun rose. At this end of the day it's more like used tinfoil that someone's flattened out ready to use again but left in the drawer for a few months - all crinkly and slightly tarnished and dull. I'm pretending that the big grey cloud isn't out there, so I'm not even going to contemplate it's shade of grey, apart from the fact that it's wet-looking.
OK, kettle's boiled so I'm outta here. Ta ra all!
K.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
The grib gives us no wind for a day and we're trickling along with the engine just above idle at at about 4 knots, a trail of little bubbles behind on the silver surface and the faint disturbance of our wake the only ruffle on the surface. Generations of Eskimos have been here on the ice and in their boats hunting bears and seals and whales, then the whalers, the explorers Amundsen, Stefansson and all the rest plus the missionaries - and now there's just us.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
There's an icebreaker, Sir Wilfred Laurier, anchored 4 miles away, down sun in the most magnificent display as the sun lights the clouds brilliant red and orange from just below the northern horizon.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Carla - hot stuff really good - Izz - Japanese and one other non fattening Restaurant offering - too hard to delve for it...Doug - tks for Catalina story - easy to imagine and weren't those guys skilful! Check the rather sad story of the Akutan Zero. Pat - great blogs and how's the brew going?? Megan - should be working hard on the speed. Hope the books were ok - Tks Mr Jackson! H - cake no 2 on the cusp. After C.Bathurst.
All we need now is Prostetnic Jeltz and his band of lugubrious poets in their yellow slimeballs to come and blast some ice from Peel Sound to build a wormhole for Franklin's ghost to time travel and all should be Cool and Froody. Umm...perhaps they could upload the Examiner as well and read her some poems on the way to Squornshellous Zeta. And maroon her there. Yay!
Appendages!
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Not really a lot to say about Tuktoyuktuk, except that it has a wonderfully alliterative name. The town (settlement?) isn't really set-up for visitors, but thanks to the wonderful hospitality of the barge operators from the NTCL freighting company, we managed the essentials - said showers, a lift into town to fill fuel cans, fresh water, laundry and a quick check of the email and ice reports. Oh - and pingos! I like pingos! Pingos are frost blisters in the land. As I understand it, water seeps in between the surface gravels, freezes and heaves the surface up a bit. Over a number of years this results in rounded domes several meters high rising from the otherwise flat tundra. Cool.
This morning Juan (Jr) from Amadino tried out his new diving dry suit and adjusted the pitch on Berri's prop. As a result, we're hooning along a lot more efficiently now. Which is lucky as there has been absolutely no wind whatsoever for most of the day. In fact, it's been so toasty warm that we've had to shed layers and I've been traipsing around the boat in bare feet. In the Arctic - would you believe it?? The water temperature has also been surprisingly warm - 8 deg C in the harbour when Juan went for his dip, and up to 15 deg C on the way out past Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula past some shallow shoals. Very unexpected.
The weather forecast is looking good for the next couple of days - very light headwinds to start, then going around to the west for a nice downhill run (hopefully not quite so exciting as the last one, but I've been tinkering with our companionway splash guard to make it more water-tight, just in case). Ice forecast in "the straits" up ahead also promising (less than 1/10 cover to Cambridge), so all going we're aiming to be in Cambridge Bay in 7-8 days. Very exciting!
There have been some wonderful mirages up here in the still weather today. We were able to see a couple of barges when they were well below the horizon - over 20 NM away according to the AIS.
OK, enough ranting from me. Alex has a radio sked with Peter in Cambridge Bay, and I'm going to mosey on into the galley and whip up some butter chicken and rice for dinner (followed by macadamia and white chocolate tarts).
Bye for now!
K.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
I don't know whether there is a webcam...
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Tomorrow is Eclipse Day. With a bit of luck we will be tied up in Tuktoyaktuk - Tuk to its friends, so tucked up might be better. We will be 600 miles short of actually being under the path of totality which starts at Cambridge Bay and about 1200 miles short of Beechey. Not our year - there's no way we could have made CB even though I think we left Nome within an hour or so of exactly the right moment and have made astonishingly fast time to here. We needed Barrow open at least 10 days earlier and no sustained northerlies for it to have worked. However, I still think that it was a neat idea, as we all did in the bar in Baton Rouge last October and there are still lots of just as important things to achieve - we have to follow the dotted line on Pascal's chart and see whether we really do end up in the UK, perhaps with a visit to Beechey. This would complete a transit of the NW Passage and it would wrap the circumnavigation Pete and I started on August 20 2005 when we left Falmouth for Hobart. IFF we can get that one together, Berri would become one of very few, if any, boats that have circumnavigated via both Cape Horn and the NWP. Not strictly in accordance with Hoyle, as the 2 circs would share the Falmouth - Hobart leg, but each complete in itself. Interesting thought, but there's a lot of water and ice to be negotiated before that can happen.
And an absorbing trip from Nome - history, lifetime special moments in the Bering Strait, Point Barrow not seen in the fog, then ice and fog and sunlight all together - still ethereal and not quite believable, yet it happened and I was certainly frightened by the possibilities. Seals, birds, jelly fish (how do they survive in icy waters?)and McQ hit a whale and I hit a tree. And three days of grey, drizzly cold damp westerlies that have blasted us across the Canadian border almost to Tuk. In marketspeak, challenging sailing, dead downwind in very big breaking waves with sometimes over 40 kts up the chuff. Seems to be easing now.
Lots of jobs to do in Tuk - the last few days have worked poor old Berri pretty hard.
Later 7005 13522
Have finally made contact with Peter Semotiuk in Cambridge Bay on the HF. Yeeehaaa. He says there is no ice at CB and it's breaking up to the east and north. Fingers crossed and back to appendages as well all y'all.
Next day - 6950 13332 and the eclipse has been and gone. We're motoring through the approaches to Tuk - about 5 miles west of the safe water mark at the entrance to the long channel. To get here, we crossed the mouth of the mighty Mackenzie River that runs across northern Canada. The water has just changed colour from deep muddy brown to the more usual rather dirty greenish jade. I think the muddy brown would be from way down inside Canada and mostly fresh water.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Fairly frustrating night's sailing. The wind came around on the beam so we had to drop our nice stable poled out hankie and put the main back up for some sloppy reaching. The sea is very confused, with swell running in two directions, about 90 deg to each other. We've been lurching and rolling around as the wind dropped down, picked up, shifted a bit, etc, etc, etc. If Huey is out to make our lives miserable, he's succeeding! Anyway, we changed the sail plan after changing flags, so we're now backed to a pole out hankie, no mainsail, and lurching along at 5 kts in the right direction.
97 NM until we reach the first lead mark into Tuk. Then another 40 miles up the leads through the shallows. But in the grand scheme of things, we're getting close to that hot shower. And the boat to-do list is getting longer too. Ray the autopilot seems to have chucked a semi-permanent wobbly. Will find out when things calm down a bit. In the meantime we're still hand-steering (ye gads! how primative).
Chicken cup-a-soup and a muslie bar for breakfast. We've eaten all the easy-to-reach instant noodles.
Today's shade of grey: damp smudged newspaper. Ick.
K.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
H tks for relay gust bk msg, Izz, just had goonish scoff. Ta.
Now going to take heart in mouth and try to send this by iridium. Have to take whole system down to do so so always a bit grey knuckle when try to bring it up again.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Yesterday's floating lumber yard has thinned out for a bit, but we nearly collided with a seal who chose the wrong time and place to surface as we were hooning down a wave. Luckily he/she took evasive action and dived again so we missed each other.
Something else interesting that I noticed in yesterday's calm and rain. The rain drops didn't "dissolve" as soon as they hit the ocean surface. The temperature/density difference between the rain and sea was enough that the drops hung around on the surface like beads of water on oil. Nifty.
Today's shade of grey: silver-grey (the sun came out for a bit and most beautiful all the lumpy shining wavy grey was).
K.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
