All day the sea birds are flying the other way. They are headed out of the ice maze, out into Lancaster, back into Baffin and south. Winter migration has begun. All the while, Mo pushes further into the heart of it.
Last evening's ice charts show improved conditions. Above Bellot, the ice is about 3/10ths for long stretches, but below there's still a tongue of 7/10ths above Tasmania Islands.
And then there's the difference between the report and actual. Alioth is a day ahead of Mo by now, and Vincent reports, "We just spent 12 hours finding our way through at times very dense ice (probably 5/10ths) from Hummock Point to Hurditch Peninsula." I measure it off: 12 hours to go 40 miles.
"You must consider to sleep in 20-minute shifts for every four hours of steering," wrote Vincent. "Keep moving. The sun also shines below Bellot Strait."
At midnight that shining sun is still above the horizon, but I am pooped. We've been underway from Graham for 20 hours, and there is always a white chunk or two on the horizon; now an hour in the bunk is too long. Given the difficulties of the next 150 miles, I decide to take one last, long sleep.
Off Cape Swansea at the top of Peel Sound, I heave to and shut down the engine. Mo drifts slowly N. I crawl into the sleeping bag. But it is no good. I am up every hour. At 4am, I rise. By 5am we are underway for our engagement with the ice.
Aug 17th Underway from Cape Swansea
Clear and calm. As we motor hour after hour, each notation in the wind column of the log reads simply, zero. The sun is bright and warm. In the cockpit, temperatures are in the 50s. After breakfast, I set about chores. The fuel tanks are topped off from jerry cans, and at the transom, both the hydrogenerator and Monte's water paddle are removed. Either could be damaged easily if we are nipped by ice.
By 11am we are across Aston Bay and it has been open water. In any case, I don't expect ice here.
Noon, still open water.
Half an hour later, we are moving through 2/10ths ice off of McClure Bay. I start hand steering. It is easy going. Though beautiful, the ice is rotten, the pieces are small and much eaten away. I weave Mo at full speed as I keep an eye forward for more.
Only once do I screw up. I aim to pass between two small floes but fail to see the diagnostic light green between them. They are one floe connected by an underwater bridge. But it is too late. There is a clinking sound much like the jostling of ice cubes in a glass. Mo thunks. And the floes drift apart.
Off Hummock point, ice thins out but two hours later I begin to see solid white on the horizon. The day's mirage picks up this image and makes it look like a tidal wave of white rolling towards us. Now we are in it, solid 5/10ths ice. Still, with care and concentration I am always able to find a lane just when it is needed. We weave back and forth; I am pulling on the tiller as though it were the handle of an oar. It is exhilarating. And still we are at full speed.
Ice goes thin then thick then thin again. Hours pass and I am still working the tiller.
What has been heavy going begins to thin at 11pm. The water is clear enough that my course changes are mere nudges of the tiller. I play the dangerous game: how little can you change course; how close to the ice can you get? Only sometimes do I miss, proof being the thud on the hull and a smudge of black on the ice.
Midnight. The sun is down. The aspect is of late evening. It is a struggle to see. Luckily now the floe is but odds and ends. I have been hand steering for nearly twelve hours and can feel the fatigue in my leaden eyes. My thighs feel shaky.
In the dusk ahead I see a long, dark opening. There is white further on but it must be a whole ten minutes distant. I flip on the autopilot, drop below, and set the alarm for a five minute nap. I collapse against a bulkhead; am immediately asleep.
On the fourth minute there is a heavy crashing sound. Mo shudders as if hitting a wall. She stops dead. The engine grids right down. I leap for the throttle and back her off and then look forward. There Mo and ice the size of a car are drifting as if dazed. But the ice block has been split in two.
At 2am we are below the ice. Yes, there's a bit here and there, but we've got past our first big plug. A sense of satisfaction. New territory, and we have managed. Maybe we can do this after all.
On we sail south. On and on. Finally there is that cut into the land, False Strait. I ease Mo in and drop anchor at 6am. We've come 150 miles in 23 hours and passed our first of three ice gates. Bellot Strait is but one mile S. Below it begins Franklin Strait. Above is Peel. We are through Peel.
August 19, 2019 1845 local 70 32S 97 27W Larsen Sound The Arctic
Just a quick note to report that Mo is through the ice and sailing fast on a N wind for Cambridge Bay, 235 miles SW.
I have been pushing to get to Alioth's position for two days. She has a busted gear box and can't make more than three knots under power. She has been hove to at the head of our last major ice plug waiting for an escort as she'd have to sail through, a tricky business.
We've all been sweating bullets over this last 30 miles of ice, and for four days I've been underway and hand steering for 18 to 20 hours a day through 3 - 5/10ths ice to get here. Only a few hours sleep a night this last week.
As it turns out, today was a piece of cake. We saw huge ice floes the size of city blocks but with wide lanes in between. Alioth and another boat, Mandregore, sailed downwind without trouble with Mo bringing up the rear under power just in case.
We got underway at 2pm and by 6:30pm we were in open water.
One big chapter in the Figure 8 is closed. One long chapter, the 4,000 mile slog home, remains.
Huge thanks to Victor Wejer, our ice guide, for his help and tough-love encouragement these last days. Victor was awake and communicating at all hours of the day--weather in the morning, ice charts in the afternoon and pep talks at 3am. It was a great pleasure to have Victor at my back!
The story will out and so will lots of photos but not today. Today, a beer and some sleep while Mo flies S toward Clarence Islands and around the last ice tongue; then we gybe SW for Cambridge Bay and onward toward home!
Sail: Under power with double reefed main as steadying sail
Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good (nm): 45 from Graham Miles since departure: 33,948
Miles to Gjoa Haven: 590
In bed by 11pm. Alarm set for 4am. Awake by 3am, wide-eyed. Underway for Peel Sound.
--
Over the last few days, charts have shown a significant reduction in ice concentrations in Peel, but there is still ice, lots of ice. One hundred miles into the Sound from the N, there is a band of 4-6/10ths ice that is sixty-five miles long and covers both the eastern and western shores. Another one hundred miles below that is a large band of 1-3/10ths ice. Below that there is open water, but it is threatened by the heavy ice feeding in from M'Clintock Channel.
Add to this an imminent change in the weather. Long range forecasts are calling for a switch from these long-running E winds to SW winds and then strong southerlies that could scramble the current ice configuration.
Add to this a paucity of anchorages in Peel. Two of the best on the W coast are icebound. The next, False Strait, is just above Bellot Strait and 165 miles from the opening.
--
In the evening I reach out to the ice guide, Victor Wejer, for a consult on anchorages. Mo needs a place to hide if things go badly. I show him the areas I've chosen.
"This is a subject I would like to avoid," he replies. "It is not written in stone that you must take the entirety of Peel in one go, but it is the usual way. Read the Canadian Sailing Directions. The height of Somerset Island does weird things to the wind; it can go from calm to gale in an instant. Most of what look like anchorages on the chart are just not safe."
"As to ice," he continues, "this is also difficult. Peel is narrow and fed from M'Clintock. Most sailboat crews fight tooth and ice pole to get through. Consider that Matt Rutherford chose Prince Regent. But for you there may not be an option. Regent will not be clear for a long time; maybe not at all this year."
By now four boats are through Peel, below Bellot Strait and on their way to Gjoa Haven. Yellow-hulled Breskell is one of them, but it has taken her four days to transit 200 miles, and I can tell from the way Olivier writes his encouraging emails that he has his doubts about doing it solo.
"Not many have singlehanded the Northwest Passage," closes Victor, "Take your difficult bite; be brave, and exercise your anchor alarm if you do stop."
--
Tillman talks about the salubrious affects of fear, but like many tonics, it tastes bad going down. In the South we were following the wind, at least. Here, even at the height of things, Mo was in her groove, and if a particular low was hell on wheels, I just had to keep my bird floating and hang on. Eventually an Ushuaia or a Hobart would hove into view.
Here we are decidedly pushing against the flow, a flow with hard, pointy teeth that has not met its match in boats this small. It may or may not spit us out the other side.
--
I recall Willie DeRoos's remarks when his Williwaw became trapped in Arctic ice. DeRoos was the first to transit the Northwest Passage in a yacht, this back in 1975. As the ice slowly came down on Williwaw and surrounded her, DeRoos's crewman, standing lookout at the bow, turned to search aft for an escape route. Willie roared from the cockpit, "there is no going back, there is only forward."
--
As I type, we are 30 miles from the entrance. Currently I plan to keep going until late, to grab as many miles as I can today and then heave to for a few hours when the sun sets (it does set now). I'd like to be at the ice edge by tomorrow afternoon.
--
In the morning, we meet our first pack ice of this transit off Maxwell Bay, a ribbon of rotting ice left over from a losing battle with the warmth of Lancaster Sound.
