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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