N69 02 W 101 30 pressure 1006, water1.7C, Air 2C 0500 UTC 9 Sept local time 22.00 8 Sept, Queen Maud Gulf
A winters start. Low cloud base and dark skies. We slowly edged our way past Cambridge Bay into Queen Maud Gulf, surely named by Amundsen.
Cambridge Bay is the last place we could really over winter the boat so I hope we don’t have to retrace our steps.
We knew Polar Bound was coming our way, many months ago. Skippered by a legend in High Latitude Sailing, David Scott Cowper. He has forgotten what we haven’t even learnt yet. Firstly, he was shown up on our AIS, as we got closer to each other, it was a surreal moment. Two Englishmen chatting away over the radio waves, in the North West Passage. No other boat or Nationality around.
Mad dogs and Englishmen came into my thoughts.
What a shame, David was heading to Cambridge Bay for breakfast and invited us to join him, very unfortunately we are in a race against time before the freeze . Also, we need to get to Baffin Bay before a big storm, don’t tell the ladies that ! Hopefully, we will be in harbour by then.
So, the rest of the day was skirting Islands with big cliffs, until this evening. Now making our way up Victoria Strait, water temps plummeted but the skies have cleared to give beautiful stars. A really clear sky, I can’t think of another night like it. Our Ice Charts show 1/10 ice. As Steve pointed out so sagely, doesn’t sound much, but if you have one large chunk in your way in the dark, it’s going to dent your boat !
I have started to twitch at the thought. The last Ice in the sea at night was the Chukchi sea before Point Barrow, we have all had nightmares ever since.
David