Ben Edwards, crew, writing from the Chukchi Sea
Hello. So, the news of the moment is we’ve completed the North East Passage. It’s taken us forty days lots of ice, five thousand two hundred miles, a polar bear, three unsuccessful fishing trips, three birthdays and two reworkings of the time but we have finally done it. We crossed the international date line yesterday, or technically this morning, just thirty six hours ago. Everyone was tired then so it wasn’t celebrated which is a shame. We crossed it on my half hour on deck so I personally have sailed Northabout to the end of the North East Passage, or, y’know, sort of sat there while auto pilot steered us over. Credit where it’s due though. Nikolai and Denis, without them we all would have died five of six times now. From the past forty days I have learnt enough from and about both of them to know there isn’t anyone I’d rather have on the boat. I have also learnt that I didn’t bring enough books. You can never have too many books. In the past three days we’ve been on the right tack so that whenever a wave come over the bow some water seeps in from the porthole vent and falls onto my bunk. Whoo.
According to the auto pilot we’ll reach Point Barrow in the next eighteen hours, I can’t wait, I might actually be able to set foot on land for the first time in what feels like years. At that point The Mother and Denis get off and The Father and Johan get on board. Johan is a Norwegian skipper, he’s going to be navigator for the North West Passage. It’ll be nice to have some new faces. In the meantime I’ve got to have breakfast, I’ll write again once we’re in Barrow. Bye.