Saturday 19 September 2015

Friday, September 18, 2015
Homer, Alaska
59°36.3'N 151°25.6'W

We made it! We are tied up in Homer Harbour, a snug little haven. The passage from Unimak Strait was fairly uneventful, just one short, vicious weather front that rolled through the night after we passed by Unimak. Why do fifty knot gusts always occur at 2 a.m.? The last night crossing Cook Inlet from Shelikof Strait was a little rocky too with wind in the low 30's and tide to deal with, but, overall not too bad.

We saw a large pod of whales around the Shumagin Islands and one surfaced fairly close to us just an hour out of Homer. Weather was mostly the usual, foggy and grey. The nights were very long and very black. It was dismal coming into Homer with fog and pouring rain, but, now that we're here, the sun is out and it is very beautiful. There was fresh snow on the mountains last night. There are trees! There is grass! There are flowers! You don't realize how much you miss them until you haven't had them while in the Arctic for the past year. The fall colours are probably still about two weeks from their peak. The grocery store was a revelation, stuffed with fresh produce and everything else you could want. Paved roads are also a welcome change from Arctic mud and dust.

We're still making arrangements for haulout here. There is only one boatyard that can do it and we hadn't realized they were tide dependent. There won't be enough water until next Friday, at the earliest, until they can handle our two metre draft. So, we are 'stuck' here for at least a week waiting for haulout. It will delay our plans to get over to Yellowknife to pick up the van, but, we can start making headway on winterization activities here, so, not a bad thing. Maybe we can fit in a bit of touring as well. Lots of possibilities, but, it's boring, and very necessary, showers and laundry first today...


Bishop's Beach, Homer, Alaska

East End, Homer, Alaska


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Monday 14 September 2015

Sunday, September 13, 2015
Unimak Strait, Alaska
54°21.1'N 164°58.4'W

As planned, we departed Nome on Monday for a straight run across the Bering Sea to Unimak Strait. Unimak Strait is the first ship passage SW of the Alaska Peninsula into the Bering Sea. It would allow us to pass through to the south side of that iconic string of islands known as the Aleutians. The Coast Pilot doesn't mince words when it talks about Bering Sea weather. It says "the weather over the Bering Sea is generally bad and very changeable. Good weather is the exception and it does not last long when it does occur." It continues with more along the same lines, but, that probably gives you an idea of what it can be like. We left with a good forecast for four days of strong northerlies. We were looking forward to a fast passage over this desolate stretch of water. The passage, about six hundred miles, took six days, two of which ended up having gale force winds. When you're offshore, there's no safe harbour to run to when the weather forecast changes unexpectedly. Our weapon of choice for these gales was to just keep sailing, fast! We were going in the right direction and Gjoa just took it in her stride. We were treated to a fine display of Aurora Borealis one night, so, that was a plus.

We didn't hear a single voice on the VHF, or, see any other ships, even on the AIS, for the whole six days. That all changed when we got near to Unimak. We were then surrounded by many fishing boats and multiple freighters transiting the Pass. There is a significant tide through the Strait (2-6 knots) and we tried to time our passage accordingly. We missed our window by about two hours and as night was falling, decided to wait the twelve hours for the next one, in daylight. So, we jogged along, dodging boats all night and lined up for the morning. We were in the right place at the right time, the conditions were calm and we just coasted through. In retrospect, we didn't get the tide boost we'd hoped for and we probably could have gone through at any time as there didn't seem to be much current.

Now in the North Pacific Ocean, we are about five hundred miles from Homer (but who's counting?) and hope to get in, all things considered, by the end of the week.

Scotch Cap - Unimak Pass, Alaska


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Saturday 5 September 2015

Saturday, September 5, 2015
Nome, Alaska
64°30.0'N 165°25.2'W



We arrived at Nome, Alaska around midnight last night after a gentle, fast day of sailing down from the Bering Strait. This morning we tied up in the small boat harbour, the only sailboat, on a dock lined with gold dredgers. After twenty-five days aboard to get here, we're enjoying some time in 'quiet' mode where the world stops moving for a while. It won't last for long though as we plan to get underway again on Monday for the last leg of this journey. We have a busy day tomorrow refueling and reprovisioning etc. It was a drizzly day here today, but, the temperature was 55°F and that felt like quite a treat.

Every boat in the small boat harbour is aluminum, Gjoa fits right in.
For those of you who don't know Nome, it was founded as a gold rush town around 1901. There is still gold mining going on here today. It's mostly small scale with individuals, or, small companies, working dredges along the shorelines in town. The people working the dredges are of the northern 'type': fiercely independent, stubborn, hard-working, dreamers who've come together at a frontier looking for the good life. Some find it, most don't, just like in 1901.

In our continuing series of Norwegian links and coincidences there are also many Roald Amundsen links with Nome. There is a bust of Amundsen here on Front St. with an identical one installed at Ny Alesund, Spitsbergen, Norway. We saw the bust at Ny Alesund while there in 2011 and now we have seen its twin here in Nome. The busts were installed to commemorate Amundsen's airship flight over the North Pole in 1926. The flight started in Ny Alesund and ended at Teller, Alaska, a community close to Nome. Nome is also the place where Amundsen's 'Maud' was seized by bailiffs, prior to being sold.

Roald Amundsen
The town's name is a tourism marketer's dream come true. Some of the cheesy phrases encountered so far are:

Nome, sweet Nome
What's in a Nome
Nome at Last
There's no place like Nome

I'm sure there must be others, have a go...

Another claim to fame for Nome, is that it is the end of the Iditarod sled dog race which runs from Anchorage to Nome and follows a historic trail route once used as an overland winter supply route.



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Friday 4 September 2015

Thursday, September 3, 2015
Bering Strait
65°N 168°W

Map of Arctic Circle (Image: Wiki)
It's been a long, slow, slog to get here to the Bering Strait from Point Barrow. One day's really great sailing (yesterday) averaging over six knots all day and four days of no wind requiring the motor to be on 24/7. However, we're glad to be here as it's another milestone for Gjoa. Continuing on our southbound journey, we just passed the Arctic Circle, at latitude 66°N. The Arctic Circle is a line that defines seasons of total dark and total light in the north. Above this line, twenty-four hour sunlight/darkness is experienced for some period of the year. The length of the period varies by location. Crossing the Arctic Circle also 'officially' defines the end of a North West Passage transit, so, for whatever it's worth, I guess we've completed it now.

The Bering Strait, forty-four miles between Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska (USA) and Cape Dezhneva, Siberia (Russia), is the gateway between the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea in the Pacific Ocean. So, we are now sailing in our third ocean having been in the Atlantic, Arctic and now the Pacific. Heading due south now, the whole of the Pacific and all its promise, lies in front of our bow.

The Strait is narrow and has a couple of islands in the middle (Diomedes) that, I'm sure on a clear day it is very scenic with Russia to starboard and the USA to port. Today, in the fog, we can see nothing, we have to conjure up the images in our mind's eye. Voices speaking Russian on the VHF do add to the ambience though. There are so few boats around here, everybody is very friendly and we keep crossing paths with the same boats over and over again. We had a nice chat last night with a passing supertug complete with barge and their support vessel, about Alaskan waters. We first saw them in Prudhoe Bay and we reminisced about both of us having to dodge ice there. They said that the ice there is even worse now, glad that's behind us.

Bering Strait sunrise, the fog rolled in soon after.
Nome is about 140 miles away and we should arrive by Saturday. We plan to stop for a couple of days to check in with the officials, refuel and reprovision before quickly getting underway to the Aleutians for the last leg of this season's journey. We're into September now and the first Alaskan September storm marks the start of winter weather patterns. Hopefully, we're still early enough to miss it, but, it's a race against time.

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