Hello Everyone,

 

So you know by now that we have turned around and are heading out of the Arctic. I look at the North West Passage as a route with 2 gates, one at the beginning (the channel at Bellot Sound in our case) and one at the end (Barrow Point in Alaska).

 

Both gates have limited opening times. When the ice allows it, gate 1 opens and you dash through it and try like hell to make it through gate 2 before that closes, also by the ice re-freezing and / or storms blocking your exit.

 

If gate 1 opens early enough, you can take your time and make it through gate 2 with time to spare. If gate 1 is very late opening, and you cannot make it to gate 2 before it closes, then your boat stays in the Arctic until next summer. No ifs or buts. That is where you stay for the next 9 months. A steel or aluminium boat, well equipped and prepared can survive the experience. Our yacht Catrin is a standard production fibreglass boat. Dai, the owner and skipper, is simply not willing to risk his boat spending the winter in the Arctic ice.

 

This year the sea and air temperature are both colder than normal for the time of year. The ice has not melted or broken up sufficiently. The result is that

gate 1 has not opened. It may open sometime in the next 2 weeks, or with ice-breaker assistance, but not in time for us to safely pass through and exit at gate 2 this year. We had already waited beyond our “cut-off” date, hoping....hoping. But when the time came, Dai made the decision.

 

We are now en route to St. Johns, Newfoundland. A long way, but it should be spectacular sailing along the coast of Labrador. Would I do it again? You bet!

 

I think this will be my last blog.Thanks to those who have been reading it, I hope it was of some small interest. It has been a privelage to be here in the Arctic, and especially to meet the Innuit people whom I greatly admire and respect.

 

Until the next time.

Take care everyone

Pete