When we arrived in Nome we had a lot to celebrate and Nome was the perfect place for it… After a long and hard night we spent a few days getting some well needed rest after spending more than 20 days at sea. Nome is a frontier town with a lot of history related to the gold rush that still seems to be happening and people come here from all around the world to try their luck. Strange vessels built on pontoons and oil barrels with small cabins on top that are used for gold dredging line the piers and we realised that this was the perfect place to sell our backup diesel outboard engine. We were lucky and sold it in a matter of days to some gold dredgers and even got ourselves on Discovery Channels Bering Sea Gold series.
During our time at sea we experienced some new vibrations from our engine and wanted to find a mechanic to have a look at our propeller and shaft since we believe that we may have hit a piece of ice along the way. Unfortunately, we could not find anyone that wanted to help us and time was running short so we decided to postpone repairs until Dutch Harbour. Time and time again we where advised by the local fishermen to leave as soon as possible as the storm season was approaching with heavy low pressures that form in the North Pacific and are pushed up into the Bering Sea. This time of year there is often two low pressures per week and we realised that there was no way that we could make it all the way to Dutch Harbour between these lows. Therefore we decided to wait for a window to sail to Nunivak Island half way where we could hide away from the bad weather and wait on a new window that would take us all the way to the Aleutian Islands.
Just before we left we received word from Nick’s father Bernard that he would go sailing again and would not be able to receive our position reports over the radio in order to update the position map of the blog. This means that we will remain in the same place until Bernard comes back in the beginning of October.
Having just crossed the Arctic Circle, this time from the North to South and on the other side of the continent, is an exhilarating feeling. According to the definition of the Northwest Passage we have just completed our passage through the Arctic achieving the most Northern Northwest Passage ever accomplished by a sailboat!
We had left Resolute nearly twenty days ago and spent half that time picking through the ice of Viscount Melville Sound and M’Clure to achieve our dream of crossing through the strait and then the second half taking on the rough waters of the Beaufort and Chuckchi Sea to finally reach the Bearing Sea and complete our passage. While it has been an exhilarating few weeks of accomplishments our attention now goes to the Bearing Strait a legendary and bizarre place, both geographically and geopolitically.
Two massive Oceans cram into a little passage between Russia and the United states not even 40 miles wide and only 40 to 50 meters deep. A place we can imagine that would be quite challenging in any sort of weather, but we have been blessed with calm winds and flat waters. Last night after being hailed by the United States Coast Guard Ship Bertholf, and congratulated on our successful passage, for the first time the clouds dispersed and revealed the stars and the dancing Northern lights adding to the allure of this expanse of water.
While filled with excitement at realizing a two year dream our thoughts have also been slowly wondering to Nome Alaska where we will arrive in about 36 hours. After an extended period in the high Arctic where fresh vegetables, fruits and a cold beer were either next to impossible to find, too expensive or illegal we have an insatiable craving for all that we intend to satisfy. After making repairs, re-provisioning and catching up on sleep we will set sail for the Aleutians and then part of the Northern Pacific to reach the inside passage along Canada’s West coast.
The wind died down and we continued towards Point Barrow the most Northern point of Alaska and last possible ice choke point. Ships have traditionally tried to round this point before September 1st but in 1871 the entire American whaling fleet was caught east of the Point, and while all the crews survived everyone of their ships was lost. Our outlook was significantly better but not straight forward in the least.
There was ice 6 nautical miles off the point extending down the Western coast 150 miles. This left us with a tight corridor to pass through only a few miles wide between the ice and the shore of Alaska and with a weather report of 25 knots (which last time became 45 knots) from the West this made the shore into a dangerous lee shore. We were concerned that sailing in the same conditions we had in the Beaufort along 150 miles of ice with land downwind of us we would end up either with a rogue piece of ice in a large wave sinking us or we would get blown onto the shallow and remote Alaskan Coastline by the heavy winds.
We looked in to anchorages but everything was charted at 2 meters which with the waves we were in made it impossible to attempt. We thought about heading back into the Beaufort for a few days and wait for a more favourable weather report, but the Arctic Circle and the completion of the Northwest Passage proved to tempting to ignore. We decided to push ahead and deal with the conditions as they happened. Approaching Barrow Point in the early morning hours the Chuckchi Sea took on a very different appearance; it is a very shallow sea and as such creates much shorter and violent waves.
Throughout the morning the winds increased to 25 knots and then 30 plus. The seas fortunately stopped building at about 3 meters and since we had to handle these nearly at right angles we were thankful they weren’t any bigger. We managed to hold a course right down the centre of the corridor between the ice and shore but the winds blew spray, snow and hail hard against the boat forcing us to don ski goggles to look forward. The boat moved violently in the short waves that crashed hard on the hull making horrible noises down below, but we were becoming conditioned from our time in the Beaufort and were happy the conditions weren’t worse.
Nearly 36 hours after we entered the ice corridor we where relived about not being caught in the Arctic for the winter. As we sailed out into open waters the wind and seas died immediately transforming the churning sea to a peaceful place allowing us to travel south quickly to the Arctic Circle.
A low pressure had been forming north of us in the Beaufort Sea and was coming our way. Since we were out of the ice we did not think much of the 25 knots of wind that we could see in the weather file. The wind and waves had been building during the day and throughout my afternoon watch I was struggling to balance the boat so that the self-steering would work. After trying every sail combination possible and reducing sail by sail I ended up with just the third reefed main. A few hours later I was woken up by Nick; Morgan was at the helm pushing the tiller to its full end with all his power, a big wave had broken in over the cockpit rail and huge dark waves were towering up behind the boat.
Quickly we closed all the hatches and secured everything loose inside the boat. We put drop boards in the companionway on top of the already permanent doors in order to stop the water from getting inside the boat. During the next few hours the wind increased to over 40 knots and the seas grew to 5-7 meter breaking waves that stood tall in the short and confused seas. For the first time during the trip we had to hoist the storm sails, but in the dark of dusk and without practice it turned into a long, cold and wet exercise. Steering the boat we had to keep all our focus as the massive waves building behind, constantly working the tiller in order to keep the waves to stern and avoid them breaking into the cockpit. While the storm sails kept us straight and at the speed we wanted to handle the breaking waves every once and awhile a wave would crash against the hull sending water into the cockpit or a giant wave would pick up the boat and send it planning down the wave at 14 knots. We shortened watches to two hours and kept two people on watch at all times.
A hard spray was blown by the wind from the top of the waves into the exposed back of the cockpit which found it’s way into even the smallest opening in the companionway and soon the inside of boat was soaked with condensation and spray. During the first few hours we lost the main communications computer and a camera to the spray and one of the waves snapped a blade off the wind generator propeller that was lashed to the rail. A dropboard came loose and was broken in half as it flew around the cockpit floor. For 48 hours we struggled to eat, sleep or even stand up. We where grateful that we had cleared the ice but there were always thoughts about hitting a stray piece in these winds and waves; after all we were only 50 miles from the pack. However, after mourning the loss of the equipment and adapting to the discomfort we came to appreciate the heavy weather and the fact that Belzebub was very well balanced under her new orange sail. Even though we had a rough ride we knew that we where given just a taste of the rage of this infamous sea. With Beaufort behind us and the Chucksi and Bearing Sea ahead we feel dwarfed by the reputation of these legendary waters that even the most seasoned sailors think of with respect.
After rounding the Northwest corner of Banks Island we wanted to rest and celebrate. We checked the map and found a shallow bay close by surrounded by a horseshoe of low lying land called Cora Harbour. We entered the bay and were happy to be greeted by a calm, quiet and desolate setting to kick back and relax in. Perfect for us to celebrate our achievement with pancakes and a full nine hour sleep!
When we woke up the following day we dropped the dinghy into the water and went to explore a half sunk schooner we had passed on our way in – Cora we were to learn. On land we first came across piles of antlers scattered about, old rusty traps and then a destroyed cabin with its contents scattered where they fell. Old cutlery, bronze pieces, tools, glass bottles, hunting and trapping gear lay all about. An old iron plate lying imbedded in the soil had `Surveyor Camp` stamped onto it. The contents we found ranged from the turn of the 19th century to mid 20th.
Soon after we lifted anchor and prepared to head out into the Beaufort Sea. We decided we wanted to be in the ice some more and wanted to spend some time at sea so opted for a Northern Route to Alaska that would take us through the Northern pack ice drifting from the polar ice cap. Fresh winds filled our sails and that night for the first time in months we saw the moon – a full moon. Early in the morning dawn we passed a piece of ice and roaming on it was a Polar Bear his lonely silhouette marked against the seas dark backdrop.
For the next two days we entered ice fields and navigated through them. At nights this came increasingly dangerous with our sails up and low visibility, we were realizing it was time to leave the ice and head for open waters. As a salutation to the ice we found a solid pack and tied Belzebub up to a large piece of ice using ice screws. We were jumping around the pieces of pack and taking photos when all of sudden about fifty meters away from us a big white body appeared from behind a hummock on its hind legs – a Polar Bear was checking us out. We ran around excited for a moment but when the polar bear fell over on to its back and began to roll around and swat at the air playfully we knew all was well and we watched him with great amusement.
The ice soon began to close around the boat and the weather report of solid Easterly winds for the next week that would fill our sails all the way to Nome Alaska 1200 nautical miles away was our sign that it was time to move on away from ice and on to the open seas.
