Boat Bound in Bernard (Plus Northwest Passage Video)

August 31, 2019

Wind: NW15-20
Sky: Low and squally with SNOW
6am Temperatures–
On Deck: 37
Cabin: 45 (before I fired up the heater)
Water: 39

Snow. 

It’s too warm to stick, but that it’s falling at all I take as a sign. In the Arctic, the dog days of summer portend winter; autumn is coming quickly, and I’m but half way through the Northwest Passage. Half way and still pinned down by contrary winds in Bernard Harbor.

Where I live at the moment, inside the boat a quarter mile S of North Star Point, is comfortable enough, but within a month it will be untenable. Which is to say, frozen.

I’m not prepared for the ten month commitment required for overwintering here. I might just stretch food supplies by careful rationing, but I don’t have enough fuel to run the diesel heater all winter. What’s more, it’s not winter diesel. It would grow waxy and unusable just as real cold set in.  

I have no choice but to keep moving. 

But not today.

—

This lull has given me a chance to get caught up on videos. I’ve made three in one day based on footage from the last two weeks–i.e. Graham Harbor on Devon Island to Cambridge Bay. 

Here is the first…