In a recent post (here) I sketched out 2014 Northwest Passage Stats and where I thought Arctic Tern fit in.

Here are a few more data points, this time focused on our particular experience. (What follows is from my log and is presented here for interest’s sake only.)

Mileages and Days

• 4167: Miles Arctic Tern sailed between Nuuk, Greenland and Nome, Alaska.
• 1866 / 2301: Miles from Nuuk to Bellot Strait (note side trips) / Miles from Bellot Strait to Nome.
• 45 / 20: Days to make Bellot Strait from Nuuk / Days to make Nome from Bellot Strait.
• 65: Days between Nuuk and Nome.

The course through the Northwest Passage is remarkably long, especially if one considers the miles to the Arctic Circle from home waters and the additional miles to “safe” water below it. Add another 2500 miles to Arctic Tern’s season from her start in Lewisport, Newfoundland to her projected winter quarters in SE Alaska, and you can see that in distance alone–not counting the difficulties of weather, pilotage, shortness of season–the passage requires a high degree of commitment.

Though Bellot is not the actual midpoint of the course, it acted, for us, as a threshold such that we tended to think of our passage as before Bellot and after Bellot. For example, almost all our ice encounters in 2014 were at and before Bellot, as was all the time we spent waiting for ice to clear.

Ice Encounters

In hindsight the time we spent up close and personal with pack-ice seems quite small. According to my records we had 10 specific ice encounters, which I define here as contact with floe or floe whose proximity required evasive action. I have not tallied work with icebergs in Greenland as they could be approached more or less on our terms, and they were only of any density in Disko Bay and near Upernavik.

In order of appearance:

• August 8: Arctic Tern works her way out of an ice plug covering the entrance to Cumming Inlet. Though the plug is not very wide, it is 7 /10ths on the western edge thinning to 3/10ths at the eastern edge. Given the heave of swell, it takes time to find a clean way out.
• August 9: We pass through loose pack entering Admiralty Inlet.
• August 17/18: We move through 1 – 3/10ths ice exiting Admiralty and working around Cape Crawford. Density requires numerous course adjustments but little reduction in speed. Water-top covered in nilas.
• August 22: Loose pack must be avoided upon entering Port Leopold but requires only occasional poling. Light W wind clears the anchorage by morning.
• August 23: While attempting a leap from Port Leopold to Fort Ross, Arctic Tern encounters the pack around Prince Regent Inlet’s Creswell Bay and is turned back. After several hours of working 1 – 3/10ths ice, we come upon a patch of what appears to be 7/10ths. From the spreaders we can see leads, but none are long and we are unable to connect more than one or two leads together before coming to a dead end. The ice is not moving, and we can expect little near-term change. Instead of wasting precious fuel and in order to manage a coming southerly, we back-track to Fury Beach and anchor behind a small spit on the north side of Fury Creek.
• August 23/24: Overnight Arctic Tern is swept out of her Fury Beach anchorage when the current makes a sudden 180 degree shift in direction and accelerates. A larger piece of floe that has been slowly retreating is quickly upon us. All hands! The ice impacts our starboard bow and anchor chain. Shore lines are cut loose; anchor chain is paid out while two of us pole furiously to free the chain. Too much pressure. Bow is being dragged down. We are preparing to buoy the last of the chain when the anchor is plucked up. Arctic Tern is swept narrowly past the ice piled up on Fury Beach spit and then the shoal at the creek entrance. With sea room and a decelerating current, we are able to disengage from the ice.
• August 26: Ice invades our Fort Ross anchorage just after breakfast of our first morning. We depart without issue, but Novara’s anchor is briefly impacted. Brands Island anchorage is full of ice. We move to Levesque.
• August 26: By late evening, the ice pack is invading Levesque, so we again weigh anchor and move to escape. This time both Novara and Arctic Tern must push their way out, leaving a fair bit of bottom paint behind.
• August 29: Arctic Tern attempts to pass Bellot Strait. Two ice plugs within the strait give us pause when viewed from a distance, one extending southward toward Zenith Point and another extending northward toward Halfway Island. Upon approach, both have near-shore gaps we pass through easily. A larger plug covers the entirety of the western entrance to the strait, but current action creates significant ice movement. Novara squeezes through the northern band, and with patience we are able to “wedge and pole” our way out.
• August 30/31: From Franklin Strait’s Tasmania Islands to Cape Victoria, Arctic Tern hugs the coast closely and can usually see ice to starboard but must negotiate loose pack only twice.
• Though pack ice is often “near” (as we pass Ice Breaker Channel, round Bathurst, round Barrow) we do not see it again the remainder of our passage.

Climate

Air Temperatures

• 5C: Departing Nuuk
• 3.5C: Lowest temperature while crossing Baffin Bay; wind from NW.
• 0C: While maneuvering in ice upon departing Arctic Bay.
• -1C: With snow and 30 knot winds in Lancaster between Rigby and Graham Harbors (with wind chill, -8C).
• 8 – 10C: In Simpson Strait.
• 0 – 3C: Cambridge Bay to Cape Bathurst and 2 – 6C: Bathurst to Barrow.
• 7C: below Barrow.
• 3C to 6C: Range of temperature on most days between Lancaster and Barrow.

Sea Temperatures

• 7.78C: Day after departure from Nuuk.
• -1.05C: Upon our encounter with the ice pack south of Creswell Bay and one of the coldest seas we recorded.
• 8.18C: Temp at Cape Lisburne.
• 10.21C: Temp just outside Nome.
• 2.5C to 4.5C: Average range of sea temperatures between Lancaster and Point Barrow when not in the company of ice.

Barometer

• 1021mb: Highest reading.
• 994mb: Lowest reading.
• 1000mb – 1015mb: typical range.
• 11: days with readings of 999mb or below.

Wind Force (wind blew from every conceivable direction except up; direction is not summarized here).

• On 18 days we recorded winds of Force 0 – 1.
• We had winds to Force 5 – 6 on 6 days.
• Force 7 was recorded on 3 days.
• Force 8 on one day (anchored in Cumming Inlet).
• The rest of days were Force 2 – 4.

Fuel Stops

Given the generally light or contrary winds and the requirement to make miles when we could, we motor-sailed or motored 70+% of the time and replenished fuel supplies in:

• Nuuk
• Upernavik
• Arctic Bay
• Cambridge Bay
• Tuk

The longest legs were Arctic Bay to Cambridge Bay (677 miles) and Tuk to Nome (1061 miles). We had our best winds between Tuk and Nome, motored the least during this leg, and arrived in Nome with much of our fuel aboard.

Upernavik Fjord. Why Leave Greenland?

A request in the comments of a recent post, “What’s it like to be back?” resulted in a response worthy of its on post.

The requests from Douglas Pohl, who authors Northwest Passage 2014:

“1) Please detail your NWP expenses. 2) If you were to go again – what would you seek out to make the experience better for you a second time? 3) Less than half of the yachts attempting a NWP made goal. What items/events/preparations/decisions made the difference between success and failure?”

My response:

First, a caveat. I’d never been to the high latitude north before this year and went there specifically to learn the weather, pilotage, and endurance challenges associated with my own upcoming attempt. I just got lucky to land a crew spot with Les and Ali on Arctic Tern, who brought a tough boat and an anchor locker full of experience to the problem. It is they who should be answering these questions.

Understanding that…starting from back to front…

3) What items/events/preparations/decisions made the difference between success and failure?

I think the main challenge of any expedition, beyond exploring deeply, is to return home with vessel and crew in one piece. So, I have nothing but respect for the skippers who, after spending weeks on the NWP, decided the risks were too great to continue. We go to rugged places to see life in the raw and to choose for ourselves how to solve their problems. Deciding to retreat from the arctic is no cakewalk given late season weather in Baffin and Davis and can be an adventure in itself. So cudos to all who attempted and got out safely.

Given that, my responses are as follows (not necessarily in this order):

a. A Metal Boat. Many have demonstrated that a metal boat is not a requisite hull material for the NWP. Cloud Nine, Fiona, Saint Brenden, Belzebub, Dodo, Gitana, just to name a few made in glass. While in Nome I met Roland, who manages the yard where you will haul out on your way south, if such is your choice. He went through the NWP in a wooden Bristol Channel Cutter in 2009, demonstrating again that pretty much any boat can do pretty much anything.

Arctic Tern is a Bruce Roberts 43 made of steel.

That said, having the reserve strength of metal in the hull gives your NWP crew the confidence to take the risks an ice passage can require. Arctic Tern was swept off her anchor by heavy ice at Fury Beach and punched through ice plugs in Bellot, Depot and Levesque. We had many concerns during these events—holing the boat was not one of them.

b. Access to Ice Reports. One boat’s crew we knew turned back because they didn’t have daily access to Environment Canada Ice Reports. Arctic Tern benefited from the help of a shore-based monitor, not an arctic expert, rather a computer-handy friend who could clip those portions of the ice reports we needed and compress them for daily send over SSB/Pactor. Other boats with Iridium technology got better, prettier pictures (at sometimes much greater cost), but our snippets were plenty to allow us to make the decisions we needed.

A full color report. What we got was a tiny snippet of this, but good enough!

c. Good at Playing Poker. Success at the NWP in 2014 required waiting, almost endlessly, for the right moments and aggressively taking the opportunities when they came. I got to learn from Les here, who pushed Arctic Tern to the edge of the pack (from Graham to Port Leopold then to Fury and Fort Ross, for example) so that when ice did shift we were in position to take advantage of it.

d. Confidence of Experience (but not overconfidence). Les and Ali had the advantage of significant high latitude experience and the lessons from their 2013 attempt, making them, in my book, the best bet in the 2014 field. That said, Les spent hours with the ice charts, forecasts and the Arctic Pilot. Reading, thinking, reassessing his plan. Always reassessing his plan! This gave us a huge advantage.

2) If you were to go again – what would you seek out to make the experience better for you a second time?

a. Delay a Baffin Crossing. We crossed over too early. We knew this and did it on purpose because early ice charts showed considerable clearing in Pond and further on. There was, we thought, the chance for a repeat of blue-water years like 2012. This turned out not to be, and so we got to fully explore Devon and Arctic Bay in exchange for Greenland north of Upernavik. Not the worst of exchanges, but … OH Greenland … how we missed you!

b. Beyond that, it’s a tough question. We had good food, fresh bread, a heated cabin, arctic streams to drink from, heavy ground tackle, a solid boat, a strong engine, a big gun, two inflatable dinghies, good companions, access to weather and ice reports, and the ability to communicate with home. All on a 43 foot boat!

1) Please detail your NWP expenses.
Again, I was one of several crew, so did not have access to the boat’s overall expedition expenses. From my observations, the biggest expenses on the NWP are a) fuel and b) food.

By my estimation, we motored or motor-sailed some 70% of the time, and we refueled in Nuuk (Arctic Tern began her attempt from Newfoundland), Upernavik, Arctic Bay, Cambridge Bay and Tuk. Given the distances and fickle winds, a sail-only passage was not an option and carrying large fuel supplies, 1000 liters, added greatly to our ability to efficiently get through.

Food in the Arctic is expensive and the selection is poor. Stocking up early, say, in Nuuk, is recommended. I found cans of stew in Arctic Bay that were $12.89. Overall prices for grocery store items appeared to be twice that of “normal” stateside and fresh vegetables often appeared way past “sell by” dates.

Food can be expensive in the north.

For crew traveling to meet a boat, plane flight expenses were considerable. Getting to Nuuk from my home in California was several thousands of dollars.

Other expenses were nominal: no marina fees, no expensive dinners in restaurants and bars, both of which are in short supply in the arctic, etc.

Big Berg in Disko Bay.

The most frequent questions I get now that I’m  home from the Northwest Passage are:

1. What’s it like to be back?
2. Would you go again?

The answer to the second of these is unequivocal, but the first is nuanced and requires some explaining.

The Northwest Passage was a domestic affair, from a certain perspective. Apart from a short sojourn in Greenland, the entirety of the voyage occurred within my “home” waters of Canada and Alaska.

That said, I’ve never traveled to a place more foreign. The sensation was of breaking our orbit to awaken on the shores of some other planet. From the discombobulation of 24-hour daylight to the invasive, grinding ice and its inescapable cold to the deep quiet of desert mountainscapes barren of trees and largely free of humans, the Arctic was decidedly not mother earth. So, returning from two months in the far north has been a stranger re-entry than my two years alone in the tropics.

On the one hand, I feel a certain pride associated with being part of a team that succeeded at a complicated, risky venture. No, not every moment was dangerous or even difficult. On Arctic Tern we baked bread several times a week; we read books in a heated cabin; we posed for pictures; we drank red wine with dinner. But the challenges of the next day, the next ice choke, the next gale, the next two thousand miles to Barrow, were always in the back of the minds. We knew we were on our own and had to rely on ourselves to get through.

Some of the self-reliant activity was quite exciting.  I won’t quickly forget our piloting Arctic Tern through the ghostly pack, giant chess pieces askew, the loose frazil tinkling like chandelier tips, or standing watch in 30 knot winds of zero degrees and snow or reefing sail with hands so cold they ached as if from intense heat. After one such experience I returned to the cockpit only to find my fingers were too “brittle” to operate the life-line clip. I had to ask for help getting out of my own gear. We poled-off bergy bits in Port Leopold; we were swept by ice off Fury Beach; we cleaved it with the ship’s bow in Bellot. These were the moments one goes to the Arctic to find.

Far more usual and wearing, however, was constant decision-making and reassessment of the plan. The Northwest Passage is a maze scattered with ice doors that open and close during one’s transit, sometimes predictably, sometimes not. Each of our hard-won advances into the maze—to Port Leopold, Fort Ross, through Bellot, around Bathurst—came with the danger of removing our ability to retreat if further advance became impossible. Intricate weather and ice reports, whose receipt was often delayed, had to be weighed against our own, local experiences. Should we take the opportunity of a possible clearing of the ice in Prince Regent Inlet or wait for a similar opportunity in Peel Sound? If we pushed on another thousand miles, could we retreat at all? What if we became embayed?

So, satisfaction at our success nestles next to a relief at having escaped.

And under that is disappointment, a gentle sadness that the adventure is now in the past and that I have left a place, so rich in interest and history, largely unexplored. Each strait, each cape and point is named for explorers from ages past, yet it still feels like virgin territory. On Fury Beach we found barrel staves from Parry’s expedition of the 1825. Here HMS Fury was wrecked, her supplies offloaded and cached, coming later to the aid of John Ross’s expedition of 1829, and here, while searching for fresh water to replenish Arctic Tern’s stores, I found the tracks of arctic fox and musk ox and came face-to-face with a polar bear. Every landing had moments like this.

Yet I can count our visits ashore on two hands. How often skipper reminded us that the Northwest Passage is not a pleasure cruise! Even on fine days one knows that the region, this bay, this peak, everything that one can see, will soon be frozen or whipped by winds that drop temperatures to inconceivable depths. Everywhere Arctic Tern sailed from Upernavik, Greenland to Nome, Alaska—that entire 3,000 mile voyage—is solid ice most of the year. Thus attendant on wonder was a sense of urgency. One must keep moving or risk not getting out. Hikes were brief; we did not dally at anchorages. Painfully, we were pulled away too soon.

Balancing all this is the sweetness of returning home, to the company and friendship of my wife, the smell of trees, the song of titmice in the back yard, to the familiar warmth of Indian summer in California.

So, what’s it like to be back? It’s a mixed bag, a jumble of related sensations all present at once and currently unsettled. I’m guessing this is pretty normal.

And would I go again?

Yes. In a heartbeat.

What follows are some of my favorite photos of Arctic Tern’s 2014 Northwest Passage:

At a Crossroads in Nuuk.

Taking Water in Nuuk; Ali Chats with the Water Superintendent.

Whale Bones in Aasiaat Harbor.

Bergy Bit in Upernavik Harbor.

Mountains and Bay Behind Upernavik.

Upernavik from Hilltop and Looking out to Sea (note collection of big bergs in the bay).

Passing a Berg upon Departure from Upernavik.

Staying Clean and Tidy during the Crossing of Baffin Bay.

On Approach to Devin Island.

Les and Ali in an RCMP Shack Near Dundas Harbor.

Musk Ox Remains Near Dundas Harbor.

The Walruses of Cuming Inlet.

Arctic Bay Church and Longboat.

A Dog Poses in Arctic Bay.

Children at Play during the Grounding of Gjoa.

Ann, Glenn, Les and Kids–Pleased at Bringing Gjoa Successfully to the Beach.

Our First Push South from Devon: Snow and Strong Headwinds.

Nick Poling ice in Port Leopold.

Ice piled on Fury Beach spit.

Polar Bear, Levesque. He hung out as if performing.

Gathering on Tug Tandberg Polar at Fort Ross. Captain in Smart Sweater.

Fort Ross Shelter.

Slushy Stuff off Cape Victoria.

Gjoa Haven emerges from Fog.

Coming Into Nome: Les and Ali Pleased at the Accomplishment.

Arctic Tern Happily Making Waves off Nome’s Sledge Island.

Arctic Ternies Celebrate a Successful Northwest Passage with the Novaras in Nome.

The Crew of Arctic Tern: Randall, Ali, Skipper Les, Nick, and Nikki.

Bananas hanging from Murre’s stern rail in the Marquesas.

It’s a funny thing about habits: they’re environment-specific.

Take bananas for example. When at home, I eat a banana each morning. I’ve convinced myself that eating fruit every day is healthy. But many fruits are temperamental—are delicate or seasonal, difficult to peal or too strong in flavor to eat regularly and next to which a bananas is as reliable and accessible as tap water.

My banana eating habit even extends to land-based travel. When on a trip I don’t just buy my coffee at Starbucks, I get a banana there too. Or if Starbucks is out, I’ll walk several blocks from my hotel in search of a banana. If I don’t find one, I’m upset. I feel constitutionally out of whack. I worry I must be short of potassium or fiber or whatever it is bananas contain that I’ve decided is key to my well-being.

But at sea bananas are precious scarce after a few days. Even if they are provisioned, they’re unlikely to last. Once while exploring the Marquesas Islands on Murre, I thought I’d be smart. (Who is Murre?) I bought an entire stalk of bananas from a local farmer, all as green as go and hard as rocks. My idea was that they would ripen slowly, and I could eat them, all 50 of them, over the next couple months. As it turned out I was wrong on all counts; in the tropical heat they ripened quickly and all at once. Within a week I was out of bananas again, having had to throw most of the stalk over the side.

On Arctic Tern’s Northwest Passage, there were no bananas. There weren’t any from the start. And after the first couple days of my banana fast, which I must admit did not include cold sweats but did include some surreptitious searches in cupboards and drawers, I found I stopped longing for them. Now, to be fair, this could be because the skipper’s favorite meal was a thick, hot porridge heaped with re-hydrated prunes. Skipper was always the first to rise and took this to mean that the choice of crew’s breakfast was his. He chose porridge. Every day. And what I learned by eating porridge every day was that the only thing one longs for afterward is to never eat again. Anything. Not even a banana.

Ali Parsons of Arctic Tern, on being told it was porridge for breakfast again.

So, one of the essential lessons of my Northwest Passage: my happiness does not depend on bananas.

And how long did this last? I have been home from the Northwest Passage for three days. Yesterday I did a grocer run. I bought bananas.

I just ate a banana for breakfast. It’s good to be home.

Arctic Tern’s route through the Northwest Passage in 2014.

By way of setting some context for Arctic Tern’s accomplishment, below are a few statistics regarding her 2014 attempt and the Northwest Passage generally. (See also Northwest Passage Statistics, II)

A Hint at the Difficulty of the Northwest Passage

• 1497: The year John Cabot, at the behest of King Henry VII, sets out on the first recorded attempt to find the Northwest Passage. Unsuccessful!
• 1851: Northwest Passage discovered by Captain Robert McClure and crew of HMS Investigator.
• 1906: The first successful attempt to sail the Northwest Passage. Roald Amundsen in Gjoa completes the route (Route 6, see below) in three seasons, spending three winters in the arctic.
• 1977: The first small yacht completes the passage; Willie de Roos in Williwaw.

Northwest Passage Results for 2014

• 30 vessels started.
• 27 continued north of the Arctic Circle.
• 9 completed the passage from Arctic Circle to Arctic Circle (2 from west to east; 7 from east to west).
• 5 reported being beset in ice during their attempt.
• 2 had to be icebreaker rescued. The particulars of the two rescued were: 36 feet aluminum/25hp singlehanded and 40 feet aluminum/46hp two persons.
• 2014 was a near repeat of 2013 with ice choke-points requiring vessels to wait for weather and late melt season conditions to navigate in near to open ice waters. A Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker and a cruise ship were both beset for three days in heavy ice but luckily were able to self-escape after a storm moved through the area.

(Source for above: Northwest Passage 2014)

Arctic Tern’s Place in History

• One of 9 vessels to complete the Northwest Passage in 2014.
• Possibly the 22nd yacht to complete Route 6 (via Lancaster Sound, Prince Regent Inlet, Bellot Strait, Rae Strait, Simpson Straits, Coronation Gulf, Amundsen Gulf, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, Bering Strait. Simpson Straits is only 6.4 meters deep, and complex currents run in Bellot Strait and Simpson Straits.)
• Possibly the 100th yacht to ever complete the passage.

(Source for last two points: official passage records are kept by R.K. Headland at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. For a PDF of the report through 2010, go to RCC Pilotage Foundation, Pg. 36.)

It was a great privileged to be a part of Les and Ali Parson’s successful crossing of the Northwest Passage.

Arctic Tern tearing along in big waves north of Sledge Island.

Sept 18

We had not seen land since Tuk.

For two weeks Arctic Tern pushed west, making her way over Canada, passing Herschel Island and Demarcation Point; then over Alaska to Point Barrow and south, and all the while we saw only gray water and gray sky accented by nothing but the very occasional white gull. We knew the horizon hid a low and dangerous coast to port and that to starboard churned the polar ice field. Once we thought a brighter section of cloud to the north revealed ice blink. Here the water temperature dropped from four degrees to two. But we saw nothing. It was just as well. The coast offered no protection and the ice, if it approached, no mercy.

At Cape Lisburne we got our first glimpse of Alaska. The cloud lifted from the water like the eyelid of some giant sleeper and we saw massive cliffs, tilted as if falling back into the sea, and black mountains of impossible weight. Suddenly birds surrounded the boat. Seals stared as we passed. The wind began to increase from the north and then the lid closed so that we crossed the Arctic Circle in gray and Diomedes (our closest approach to Russia) in the dark. Arctic Tern surfed along in a large and growing swell.

The morning of our last day held promise. We had seen stars overnight, and by dawn, sun. Our strong northerly wind became stronger, the swell sharper and continually breaking and we boomed along under a partially reefed jib.

By noon and our approach to Sledge Island the sky had opened completely. Now winds often touched 40 knots and they fell from Alaska’s infinity of ranges where a great wave of bleached cloud hung over the peaks but did not approach. We hand steered, partly to relieve the struggling autopilot and partly for the thrill. Winds had been favorable since Cape Bathurst, some 1200 miles east, but never like this; never had we had the opportunity to crash along at such maximums of speed.

If the passage over the top had been dull and eventless, compounding our impatience and making us crabby, now our mood lightened as Arctic Tern happily plowed the waves. We were almost giddy. Hell, we were almost there; we had almost done it. And we were finishing with an exclamation point of wind and wild sea.

Briefly I wondered what might go wrong. Surely there must be some final impediment. A sheet would part; we would run aground in the Sledge Island channel. Our entire Northwest Passage had been an exercise in checked progress, backtracking and restarting. Weather held us at anchor here; ice blocked our way there or invaded our anchorage or pushed us into shallows. We broke free of the pack only to face days of headwinds. Each milestone gave way to yet another hurdle: the hard won victory of clearing Bellot back on August 30th had only qualified us for the test of getting the 2,000 miles to Cape Barrow before winter put us on the beach.

But the freedom of Arctic Tern’s gate was the real deal, and for hours we sailed and not a single thing went wrong.

Then the gold dredgers of Nome began to dot the sandy beach of coast; and then the breakwater of the harbor hove into view. Here the wind slackened; the swell moderated, blanked by the east trending shore. And under a golden sunset we made our way into Nome’s inner harbor where Ding, a crewman from Novara, stood by to catch our lines.

We had done it. We had accomplished the goal. We had sailed the frigid and forbidding 5,000 mile Northwest Passage in one season.

Cape Lisburne, our first view of Alaska, seen as if through the slit of an eye; sea below and cloud above.

Arctic Tern surfing down big waves after Pt Barrow.

Crossing the Arctic Circle.

Cheers to Les and Ali after crossing the Arctic Circle.

Cheers to Nick and Nikki after crossing the Arctic Circle.

Winds to 40 knots on our last day. Arctic Tern is having a blast!

Ali at the wheel. Great fun and we had difficulty getting it back from her.

Les monitoring our progress toward Nome.

Coming into Nome Inner Harbor.

The Happy Crew of Arctic Tern in Nome, having completed the Northwest Passage east to west in 2014.

Arctic Tern arrived Nome, Alaska, at 7PM local, September 18, thus completing her 2014 Northwest Passage.

There before us was our traveling companion, Novara, and after quick greetings we escorted each other to the nearest (there are several, we hear) establishment for a celebratory dinner generously lubricated with honest, unapologetic American beer! None of us can quite recall how things ended up last night, but if they ended as well as the cruise, then we have no complaints.

Arctic Tern arriving Nome; Novara there to take lines.

Arctic Tern alongside Novara, Nome, Alaska

Some paved roads in Alaska, but to what effect?

Arctic Ternies and Novaras celebrating their successes at the Airport Pizza Parlor, Nome.

“We did it, we did it!” Phil of Novara and Nikki of Arctic Tern.

Happy Skippers, Les Parsons of Arctic Tern and Steve Brown of Novara.

Randall under a new flag.

Nikki’s mileage tracking board–hands off!

Sept 15

Wind: NE 10-15
Sea: 1 meter
Sky: occluded, high ceiling, light rain occasional
Temp: Air, 5C; Sea, 2.7 to 4.5 to 7.5C as we head south
Bar: 1001 – 998

Approaching Point Hope, the most northerly position achieved by Captain Cook.

Distances Remaining
190 miles to the Arctic Circle
280 miles to the Diomedes Islands
350 miles to Nome

“We’ve got to be nearly somewhere now.” Nick Carter (Arctic Tern crewmember)

No days pass more slowly than the last few days of a long voyage. At some unremarkable point, the journey transitions from one whose end is distant, indeterminate and not worth considering to one that is quite possibly imminent without being tomorrow. Gone is the joy of living life on passage; gone is the dream of making the attempt; gone is the thrill of the fight. In one’s mind, the deed has been done, and there is nothing left but to wait on the conveyance to make its station.

Patience, the most requisite of sailing skills, evaporates. A week ago Nikki began tracking distances (to Barrow, the Diomedes, the circle, Nome) on a white board in the main cabin. Initially we took little interest; the numbers were four digits, the math impossible. But our eagerness has increased as we approach. Now we are upset if Nikki hasn’t refreshed her data before breakfast, and once while she slept off watch (such laziness!), I took the liberty of amending the distances myself, only to be chided later for calculations that were incorrect; my numbers were too big.

Several times each watch one pair of us unfurls the Yankee to catch some of this zephyrous northeasterly. Finding the sail fills, we reduce throttle. Our speed decreases. Someone aboard, most usually the skipper, barks discontentedly at our slowness. Consequently, the sail is furled and the engine re-revved. Slowness is not an option.

We can plan our arrival to the hour. According to the chart plotter that hour will be 2 days and 3 hours or 2 days and 11 hours in the future, depending on what side of a wave Arctic Tern is surfing. Over dinner (tonight Ali made Chicken Curry, a crew favorite) we discuss what we will do in port. The contenders are showers, laundry, drinks, *not* in that order, and we know the name and location of each establishment required to fill these needs. Even so, each evening someone reads aloud from the Alaska travel book. We want to see Nome’s nameplate, a gold pan the size of a billboard; we wonder if the streets are paved; what do the 3,000 residents do; are they more like Canadians or more like Texans?

Jokes that we’ve told uncountable times and which ceased to be funny before the first ice encounter are funny again. Banal conversation, unbearable 300 miles back, is now interesting. After a morning of talking, I become aware that I am describing in detail the constituents, pattern and color of the ancient stucco that covers my house in California, and my audience is listening; they are asking questions ? about stucco!

We smile inexplicably. We hum. We tidy our personal belongings or spend a little more time cleaning the galley, the cabin sole. Nick allows himself an extra cigarette every 15 miles now that rationing has been cancelled. Only one of us, it should be noted, has been required to do some preliminary laundry *before* being allowed to represent Arctic Tern ashore. He has been given soap and a bucket and asked to wash those pants that have been his second skin since Graham Harbor.

The American Flag is raised at the starboard spreader. A cruising guide to the Aleutians is dug from a deep locker. Someone starts a shopping list.

And now each of us thinks of our journey’s next leg. Les and Ali are corresponding with towns in Southeast Alaska where Arctic Tern could over-winter; Nick and Nikki consider flights to tropical destinations, and I contemplate where to make the jump for home, wife and family.

But for the time being each wave produces another, and the gray, horizonless drizzle and low gray birdless sea promise what they’ve always promised, miles and more miles.

The Arctic Pilot says that with the rounding of Point Barrow east to west, a vessel transiting these waters completes the Northwest Passage. We aboard Arctic Tern are not sure why this would be, as it’s commonly held that the passage is at least Arctic Circle to Arctic Circle, if not Atlantic to Pacific.

Still, it’s a big moment for us. We are currently four miles from making Point Barrow, where we will turn finally and definitively south for Nome and our Pacific exit.

Compared to others, our passage over the top of Alaska has been a breeze. Quite literally. After our fight with headwinds in Coronation, Dolphin and Union and Amundsen Gulf, the wind has become forcefully favorable. For three days now we’ve been following a brisk and building easterly under headsails only. Winds came on to 30 knots yesterday; touched 40 overnight and are still in the high 20s as I write. Seas have been bombing along at 3 and 4 meters, breaking heavily, and requiring us to hold on with two hands while cooking and three while pouring out the coffee. Cups and bowls unattended go flying, as does the odd crewmember who misses his or her grab as the boat goes by.

What’s more, ice conditions have been perfect, which is to say there hasn’t been any. Reports tell us that from roughly Demarcation Point and west, the ice pack has receded to 73N while our course line climbs through 70 and 71N, and at Barrow, the pack has pulled back a full 110 miles toward the pole. This has allowed Les to set a great circle route between Cape Bathurst and Point Barrow that has needed no adjustment.

This is markedly different from many experiences, notably those we aboard have been reading of these last weeks. Willie De Roos, in *North-West Passage* describes a harrowing run along Alaska. The pack ice that year (1977) pushed well in toward the coast and forced him onto a course that nearly grounded his Williwaw on north Alaska’s endless shoals. Jarlath Cunnane describes similar experiences atop Alaska in *Northabout* (2000), and David Scott Cowper’s first crossing was similarly distressed. Shakleton once quipped that he hated adventures that went too smoothly, but we on Arctic Tern are not complaining.

(These perfect conditions have prompted one reader to ask why we are in such a hurry. The answer is two-fold: one, if ice were to become an issue on this leg, its most likely point of contact would be Point Barrow itself. If we met ice there, the likelihood of spending the winter of the beach would jump exponentially. Two, ice is not our only worry. Winter weather between Point Barrow and Southeast Alaska, Arctic Tern’s final destination, has already commenced in the form of blasting gales. Simply put, it’s time to get out of the north.)

Our friends on Drina, currently 150 miles east of us, have not had such an easy run of it. Their second auto pilot gave out last night, forcing their three crew from 4-on 8-off watches into 2-on 4-off and hand steering. Having had a similar experience on my first North Pacific crossing, I can report that two hours at the helm never felt longer than when the weather is cold. And ours still hovers between 2 and 3C. A few hours later Drina reported that their main sail had split. They may search out an anchorage on the west side of Barrow so as to effect a repair.

Worried as we are for the Drinas, spirits continue to be high among the Ternies. When not sailing, we are talking of Alaska and what to expect in Nome, still days away. Les has promised shore leave of a duration longer than one hour (all that was allowed in Tuk and a few other stops). So now we are dreaming of simple things. Hot showers. The fresh scent of clean laundry. And the equally beguiling smells (not to mention tastes) available to patrons of rank and frothy frontier bars.