MV Gjoa: August 2015

Saturday, 29 August 2015

Point Barrow

Saturday, August 29, 2015
Point Barrow, Alaska
71°23'N 156°28'W

At Prudhoe Bay, as hoped for, the wind blew from the south all night. By morning, the wall of ice on the northern horizon had disappeared. We decided to poke Gjoa's bow out beyond the barrier islands and see what, if anything, the wind had done to the ice. On the way out we passed through some ice debris and were worried about what we'd find. Surprisingly, we found NO ICE and happily turned westward on a flat calm sea, with only intermittent fog banks rolling over us. Forty or so miles later we entered Harrison Bay and were disappointed to find quite a bit of ice in it. That was the least of our worries as there was now a 40 knot west gale warning (it didn't actually go to 40 knots) to contend with. Gales are supposed to only happen one percent of the time in June, July and August. What is it with our luck? We had the big gale in Dundas Harbour last year and now another one this year!

There is no really safe anchorage anywhere in this area. We thought we'd try and get into the lee of Cape Halkett, but, it took us too long to get there in the steadily increasing headwinds and we didn't make it. Even if we had, the anchorage was very marginal as the water is so shallow you'd be forced to anchor a mile offshore, offering maybe a little fetch protection but not much else. It was now two a.m. and a decision was needed. We got out of the worst of the ice by heading further into the bay, then hove-to for a few hours until we ran out of sea room. Then, the only thing left was to just keep sailing, tacking back and forth to try and hold station and not lose any ground. Over the next twenty-four hours we motorsailed maybe sixty-five miles with a vmg (velocity made good) of maybe five miles. At least we didn't go backwards. The ice was very hard to see at night (and during the day) when the waves and whitecaps were added to the mix. Friday morning, the wind lessened and changed direction a bit allowing us to move slowly westward again. There was a significant amount of ice to dodge around Cape Halkett, but, we saw our last ice Friday morning, around 152W and haven't seen any since, hooray!

Today, Saturday, we finally rounded Point Barrow. Losing two nights to ice and two nights to the gale means it took us quite a bit longer than we thought, but, having now passed this important milestone we are only looking forward, not back. Point Barrow might seem like an inconsequential gravel and sand spit to some. To westbound NWP sailors it has real significance. A familiar refrain, oft repeated is "gotta get round Barrow before September 15th". Why? The Coast Pilot says: "At Point Barrow young ice begins to form around heavy ice about mid-September and by the end of the month it forms in open water and makes rapidly along the beach. By this time the pack has moved close to shore." Not a place you want to be caught in around mid-September and coming from the east, with thousands of miles of Arctic waters to cross before getting here, a time deadline like this just adds to the pressure. It's a relief to be round.

Point Barrow is at the northernmost tip of Alaska (Image: wiki)

Point Barrow is the northernmost point of land in the United States and is the northernmost latitude we will be at during this passage. It's all south from here, although there's a lot of west still yet to go.

The Point also marks the division of two seas, we have now just left the Beaufort Sea and are entering the Chukchi Sea.

On this western side of Point Barrow, the temperature has shot up from the 2°C it's been hovering around for more than a week (providing a few snow showers to go along with the rain) to around 5°C now. Maybe it will get warmer still as we move south? We're seeing more seabirds now as well.

We're now just about halfway in our passage between Cambridge Bay and our hoped-for destination of Homer, Alaska. From here it looks like a slow passage to Nome. Winds are going to be fairly light and variable over the next three to four days meaning a long, slow motorsail probably. After the ice and gales we've just come through, maybe a little boredom is a good thing.

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Tuesday, 25 August 2015

Blocked

Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Prudhoe Bay, Alaska
70°22.969N 148°03.618W

If you'd asked me last year where I thought there might be an ice blockage, in August, during our western half transit of the NWP, I would never have said the Arctic Alaska coast. However, here we are and we are blocked from proceeding further by the current ice conditions. We are just 175 miles from Point Barrow, the northernmost point of the route and we are most anxious to round this milestone and start on our way south. So close and yet so far.

Ice like this is easy to manage.

After two nights in Tuk we had a good run to Demarcation Point (US/Canada border). We'd planned to stop at Herschel Island, but, the favourable east wind was too good to pass up so we kept going. Heavy fog settled in and we slowly continued to make our way west. At this point we were hopeful we wouldn't see any ice at all. The Canadian ice chart showed a slim, but, clear lead close to the shoreline. We encountered a local commercial ship and asked about current ice conditions. The captain gave us the bad news. The clear lead shown is inside the barrier islands along the coastline. Outside the barrier islands the ice is old and thick. He had tried to get through the Newport entrance into the lagoon behind the islands the day before and had to turn back to the Mary Sachs entrance as Newport was totally blocked. This wasn't good news because Newport is the main entrance and has the deepest water. We have too much draft (we draw two metres (six feet+)) to get into Mary Sachs. In very heavy fog we crept our way into Simpson Cove and anchored overnight to study the charts and try to find a way forward. We decided to try Challenge Entrance, between Mary Sachs and Newport. Not as wide and deep as Newport, but, it was our only option.

Tuesday morning the fog had lifted and we set off. No ice at all to Mary Sachs, then, we started seeing more and more rogue bergs and knew we were coming to an ice mass. Five miles to go to the Challenge Entrance and we were in a big berg field. It was fairly open and we were able to play berg 'dodgem' and made it through Challenge. There were a few small bits of ice inside, but, nothing like we'd just come through so, all was good and we continued on our way. As we neared Prudhoe Bay and night fell, the ice became more frequent. When heavy fog descended it just wasn't safe to proceed further. We tried to get to the only anchorages mentioned in the Coast Pilot, but, there was too much ice and no protection from it once there. We turned inland instead and went as close to the mainland and out of the shipping as we could and set the anchor. Miraculously, this area, although very exposed, is free of ice. We can see a wall of it on the horizon, but, there's none here for the moment. We are anchored right next to the Prudhoe Bay main oil production island. There are massive installations all along the coast and a huge, burning, glowing orb sits on the horizon and lights up the night sky. It's an eerie environment to be in. There is a lot of shipping inside the lagoon with tugs and barges all going back and forth to various installations. It doesn't seem to bother them that they are moving the equipment around in only 2-5 metres of water.

Inside the protected lagoons, we have covered half the distance to Cape Halkett, which is still about eighty-five miles west. According to the ice chart, the ice is supposed to end there. We spoke again with our local captain. He didn't know how far west the ice extended but said that Harrison Bay, right next to Cape Halkett was reported to be full of ice a couple of days ago.

Due to our draft we are unable to get into the next protected lagoon, Simpson Lagoon, which only has six feet of water. That would have taken us a long way further west. As it is, our only option is to go back outside the barrier islands now and try and find our way through an eighty-five mile long ice maze. Probably not a smart move, so, we are staying put instead. Southerly winds are supposed to start today. If they arrive they should blow the ice north and clear a path for us. Fingers crossed that's the case. The thought of having to return to Tuk to freeze in for another winter is giving us the willies! There should be at least another three weeks before Barrow starts to freeze in again, so we are hopeful a window will still open in time for us to pass through.

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Wednesday, 19 August 2015

Tuk Arrival

Wednesday, August 19
Tuktoyaktuk, NWT
69º 26.8N 133º 00.1W

After a solid first week slogging it out against tough headwinds, we finally got a break. The wind went into the East, Gjoa kicked up her heels and we were off on a broad reach in NE25-30 knot winds. We set a new noon-to-noon speed record of 172 miles (average 7.2 knots per hour) which will be hard for us to beat. We kept up the pace for almost two days and surfed into Tuktoyatuk just as the wind started to die, great timing and a great run!

We are here for a brief stop to refuel and top up our provisions before heading west again. Just our luck again to pick a bad ice year for the western half of the NWP. There is still a lot of ice very close to the Alaska Arctic coastline, unusual for this time of year. It has been receding gradually and we hope by the time we get there in a few days it should have dissipated enough to get by. We crossed paths with a megayacht the other day who reported that they just barely squeaked through it.

The tongue of ice almost reaching the coastline has been hanging around for weeks, but, is less concentrated now.

Tuktoyaktuk, or, Tuk as it is commonly referred to, is a small hamlet of around 950 people located near the delta of the Mackenzie River where it empties into the Arctic Ocean. There is no road access other than a winter ice road. A new all-weather road is currently under construction and expected to finish in the next couple of years. It has an excellent natural harbour and good facilities.

Tug and barge outbound from Tuk

Nunavut - "Our Land"

Now that we have left Nunavut, here is some factual information about it that maybe we should have shared at the beginning of our year-long visit. The most stunning fact is how few people there are here, just 33,000 spread across a vast land the size of Western Europe.

On April 1, 1999, Canada's original Northwest Territory was divided. The easternmost portion became Nunavut. The word "Nunavut" means "Our Land" in Inuktitut, the primary language of its Aboriginal people, the Inuit, who represent 85% of Nunavut's residents.

Comprising most of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, about one fifth of the total landmass of Canada, Nunavut is the size of Western Europe. It is the largest yet least populated of all the provinces and territories in Canada, with a total area of 2,093,190 square kilometres (808,190 square miles) and a population of approximately 33,330 people — 84 percent Inuit. This works out to one person for every 65 square kilometres (25 square miles).

Nunavut is home to the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world, Alert, a military installation which is only 817 kilometres (508 miles) from the North Pole.

Nunavut has no road links to the south and with the exception of a 21 kilometre stretch between Arctic Bay and Nanisivik, no roads between communities either.

The Native people of Nunavut prefer to be known as Inuit, which means "people" in Inuktitut. One person is an Inuk. A person from Nunavut is a Nunavummiut.

There are four official languages in Nunavut — Inuktitut, English, French and Inuinnaqtun, which is a variant of the Inuit language spoken in the westernmost communities of the territory. Inuktitut is the mother tongue of 70 percent of Nunavummiut. English is the first language of 27 percent of the population, French and Inuinnaqtun about one and a half percent each.

Inuktitut began as a purely oral language yet today is is primarily written with a system of "syllabics" originally developed by Anglican missionaries for the Cree and adapted for Inuit at the beginning of the 19th century.

The Inuktitut word for 'thank you' is 'qujannamiik'.

The object on the Nunavut flag is an Inuksuk (Inukshuk in English), meaning "likeness of a person". It's a stone monument made in the shape of, or to indicate, a human form. These cairns are a common feature throughout Nunavut. Inuksuit (the pural of Inuksuk) serve a variety of purposes including; to guide hunters on their way home, to indicate where food was stored, to mark an area where significant events took place and to help hunt caribou herds.

Flag of Nunavut

In Inuinnaqtun, Cambridge Bay is called 'Iqaluktuuttiaq' because it is a 'good fishing place.' Arctic char here can grow larger than 30 pounds and are anadromous, which means they are born in fresh water, spend much of their lives feeding in the sea and return to fresh water to spawn. The migration of char up Nunavut rivers begins in late August. They spawn in rivers or inland lakes in September and October. The young hatch in late April and may spend four or five years in freshwater before joining adult char in their annual migration back to the ocean from early June to mid-July. Arctic char can live to 40 years old but the lifespan of most is around 20 years. Char are very similar to salmon and just as tasty, but, unlike salmon, they cannot leap into the air as they travel upstream.

Sunday, 16 August 2015

On our way

Sunday, August 16, 2015
Amundsen Gulf
69° 23.03N 118° 51.1W

What a difference a year makes. On this date last year we were holed up in Arctic Bay, waiting for the ice to clear so we could continue our journey westwards. As you'll recall, 2014 was a difficult ice year. Peel Sound and Victoria Strait didn't open at all and there was only about a three day window when boats could pass through via Prince Regent/Bellot Strait and to points further west, via Gjoa Haven. By contrast, the last ice chart we looked at this year showed Peel opening nicely and Prince Regent open to Bellot a full three weeks earlier! This year's flotilla of boats should have an easier time of it.

In prior years, boats have been able to leave Cambridge Bay the first week of August and we were hoping to do the same, if not a little earlier. As it turned out, due to problems documented in previous posts, we didn't leave until the second week. Our passage so far has been slow, but, steady. We just passed Clifton Point, in Amundsen Gulf, now having left Nunavut and entered the NWT (Northwest Territories). The 'sailing' has been so-so, winds have not been favourable, either no wind at all, or, continuously in the NW (i.e. 'on the nose'). We're trying to make the best of it, the motor is getting a workout and we anchored two nights in Byron Bay to let the worst of the headwinds pass by. The wind is finally supposed to go East on Tuesday and this should give us the final push we will need to make landfall for a brief stopover in Tuktoyaktuk.

This western half of the NWP is like a different world to the eastern half. The land is mostly low and featureless and with the rain, grey skies and fog we've been experiencing, mostly invisible. Temperatures are usually around +7C during the day, dipping to +2C overnight. We did have one glorious, clear, sunny and still day while inching our way through the difficult currents we experienced in Dolphin and Union Strait.

It didn't always look like this!

We dined al fresco in the cockpit, first time ever in this boat and it almost made the not-so-nice days worth it. We haven't seen a speck of ice although there are still a few isolated patches of snow on the hills. Boat traffic is almost non-existent. We have encountered just two tugs, both towing multiple barges to Cambridge Bay. One of them was coming all the way from Vancouver and the captain sounded very tired when we spoke to him at 3 a.m. Our watches are fairly relaxed as we don't need to look for ice every single second and that has been quite a relief.

We were determined not to rush through this western half of the NWP and had planned a proper cruise with a few stops along the way. However, our late start, slow progress and feeling like another winter is already beginning to nip at our keel with +2C temperatures and recent snow experienced in Sachs Harbour already, we will now be trying to just get through as fast as possible.

Will post some pictures when we have broadband again.

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Monday, 10 August 2015

Afloat at Last

It's a long story and I'll omit the gory details, but, the crane operator, promised for last Tuesday, did actually arrive. Unfortunately, he turned out to be the same guy who had left us in the lurch previously and he again had a million excuses as to why he couldn't do the job. Another big letdown and we were at our wit's end. Luckily, a replacement was found in Yellowknife from the company that lifts all the boats in/out of Great Slave Lake every year (Yellowknife Concrete Pumping and Crane). We were thrilled that he was able to come on short notice and even flew in on a Sunday. We met him at the airport at noon, he started our job at 1400 and we were all done by 1600, finally afloat after weeks and weeks of waiting. It was an ordeal made all the more difficult as the ice has been open outside Cambridge Bay for a week now and we could have left. Instead, we have lost an entire week of a very short cruising season and this will cut into our plans significantly. During the past week two other yachts arrived from the west (and are now continuing eastwards), having already traveled the entire route that we are now embarking upon.

Finally afloat, Sunday August 9, Cambridge Bay (Photo Credit: AD)

The lift wasn't pretty. It took a while, with some experimentation and a few heart-stopping moments, to figure out the correct strap placement. We had only lifted via travelift before and four independent, computerized strap points on a travelift, that are completely clear of all rigging, are a vastly different setup from four points joined to a single block directly overhead. Reach was also an issue. The crane operator was very experienced, we all figured it out and the job got done.

Almost there (Photo Credit: AD)

If any other sailors are reading this and contemplating a winter stay in Cambridge Bay, we'd recommend you avoid using the crane at all costs. It may be broken and/or a licensed operator may not be available when you need them. Find another method instead.

We will be finally on our way tomorrow, Alaska or bust!

One benefit of having an extra week in Cambridge Bay, with most boat jobs done, was that we had some time to catch up on visits.

The Peregrine falcon chicks are much more developed now, still a long way to go though (Photo Credit: GP)

This airplane just showed up on our beach, two fisherman from Yellowknife out for a jolly (Photo Credit: GP)

A visit to the famous 'Maud' sofa (Photo Credit: GP)

This very large bearded seal hung around the back of the boat for a couple of weeks (Photo Credit: GP)

Sunday, 2 August 2015

Still Waiting - Update

Almost a week since my last post and nothing much has changed. We are STILL WAITING here in Cambridge Bay. Unbelievably, the crane operator that was lined up to launch us last week left town without even a goodbye, leaving us high and dry still on the shore and extremely frustrated. Another operator is flying in from Yellowknife on Tuesday and we're hopeful that will be the day we finally get back into the water.

We're not on the critical path just yet as the ice is still blocking our exit. It's looking better, but, not yet ideal for departure. Yesterday's ice chart is no longer showing any 9-10/10 outside Cambridge Bay. It's now showing a band of 4-8/10 across the entrance. This is still too difficult for us to get through and we were curious how accurate this was. Six of us decided to charter a local floatplane to check it out.

Dease Strait, outside Cambridge Bay, Aug 1/2015

There's probably a route through there somewhere, but, it would be a slow and tortuous process trying to find it, better to wait a few more days (not that we have much choice) when it should improve significantly. There is a Dutch boat, Necton, making a west-to-east NWP transit, that is waiting outside somewhere in Dease Strait. Yesterday, the Coast Guard advised them not to try and enter the ice. It sounds like they are taking the advice and staying put for now.

The one hour flight was absolutely magnificent. It was a perfect day and the pilot was able to swoop us along at only a couple of hundred feet off the ground. It was a completely different perspective on the place we've called home for the last year. Beaches, turquoise water and wildlife were all on display.

This was our chariot, a DeHavilland Beaver, seating seven.

Cold, clear water meant we could see right to the bottom.

In some places the turquoise colour was so intense you might have thought you were in the Caribbean, except for the ice floes here and there.

The brown shapes on the tundra are muskox, the first we've seen in the Arctic. We saw two, or, three family groupings during the flight.

All the critical boat jobs have been done that can get done while still onshore and we now have more time for tourism activities. The weather has been incredible here over the last few days, sunny, windless and +17C. People are out in shorts and t-shirts, with bare arms/legs and breezy summer sundresses. Mosquitoes are almost non-existent. Summer here is short, but, very, very sweet and we've been making the best of the beautiful weather with outings and hikes.