And now we are six...

Of the thirteen starters, we are now down to six yachts (and a tug/barge) trying to go east-to-west. The rest have gone back, fed up with the wait and worried about meeting the Alaska passage deadline (past Point Barrow by September 10). Four of us are together at Port Leopold, at the top of Prince Regent Inlet. One has tried to get a little further south and could not get through, the other one is trying to get to us from further east. Of the remaining six, three have said that if we are not through by the end of the month they will turn back as well. The Coast Guard sent an order this a.m. for all sailing vessels to stay put and not even attempt a transit. They are expecting heavy ice conditions for at least another week. Their icebreaker was trying to escort the Silver Explorer through and both were beset in the ice coming down from McClintock which is applying a lot of pressure. The Pierre Radisson (icebreaker) will be in the area of Bellot strait today and will report on the current conditions. So, we wait...

The Tandberg Polar (the Maud tug/barge), started down Prince Regent a couple of days ago and encountered too much ice. Nordreg told them to return to the other side of Lancaster and wait. Very early this morning they passed by us at Port Leopold on the way south. We're not sure yet what that means.

To backtrack a little, we left Arctic Bay on Tuesday past. We were sorry to miss the town's big event of the year, the arrival of the Sea Lift on August 27. This is the arrival of the supply boat which comes just once a year. Families place orders for food, vehicles, furniture, appliances etc. and it all arrives by boat from Montreal. It sounds like quite an event with containers being unloaded onto the beach and a carnival atmosphere.

The passage from Arctic Bay started well, as usual, but then degenerated into a struggle against 30 knot headwinds and waves. We just couldn't make any progress, so, diverted back across Lancaster Sound to the north. The sail across was accompanied by snow. We entered Graham Harbour and had a lovely surprise. The snow had turned it from the usual gravel pit scenery into Lake Louise in miniature. There was a natural breakwater behind which there was a pool of glacial turquoise-coloured water, calm and serene. We couldn't wait to get the anchor down and the heat on.

The next day we crossed back over Lancaster and had our first foray into a significant ice field. We tried to skirt around it, but, it must have been 20 miles long, so, we had to go through. A bit nerve-wracking, but, we got through ok. We hit a bad patch of fog while closing Port Leopold and then more ice! It looked impenetrable. We had heard that there was at least one boat at anchor inside and we wanted to join them, but, it seemed too much to go through. We thought we'd continue on a little further. Soon, it looked as bad as the ice going into Port Leopold, so, we turned around and took our chances. Nothing quite so exciting as dodging ice floes in 25 knot winds with the temperature around zero at 2 a.m. Anyway, we got in, there were three boats at anchor and we were greatly relieved to get the anchor down. Now we're on ice watch, the bay is quite open and we have south winds today bringing ice into the harbour. We have to be careful not to let any floes get caught on our anchor chain.

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Port Leopold 24/8/2014 12:00 73°51.9'N 090°18.5'W