Our first day with the new crew. I loved it! Mike went up the mast to check all the kit at the top and see why it was so hard to pull the mainsail up. Turns out the top of the mast is bent, not sure why, might be the shrouds.

Ben Edwards, crew all 4 legs

Our first day with the new crew. I loved it! I woke up at about half eight, David and Rob were already in the saloon with breakfast so I had a couple of slices of bread. Dad had gone up to the hostel to send the video from the interviews to Frances which would take a number of hours so I stayed in the boat and helped David and Rob with the jobs we needed to do on the boat. So we emptied the lazaratte so we could check the auto-helm repair Dad and I had done in Tuktoyuktuk to see if it was still working, we thought so and when Mike arrived he had a look and reached the same conclusion. Whoo! Thank you Willard Craig.

After that we checked the sails and David fixed one of the runners on the mainsail and fixed the guard rail. Andrew tightened the engine mounts that got rid of a very irritating vibration in the table and went though all the basic boat checks you have to do. At one o’clock we said farewell to Eagles Quest and left the dock. We’d agreed with them we were going to anchor and we gave them our route and they could come and meet us.

The sailing was beautiful, flat seas, no wind which was unfortunate but the rest made up for it. The views were characteristically excellent and the temperature was at a pleasant level. For today we had no watch system, we were all just either on watch, on the toilet or getting food. Sandwiches for lunch. Corned beef with every kind of pickle we have on the boat. Funnily enough it was really really nice. We only went about thirty miles but found a really nice anchorage with an old abandoned hamlet nearby, I’ll send pictures. After we put the anchor down we all went down for dinner.

Before the trip The Mother put a lot of effort into the provisioning. It took weeks, she organised a menu and at the end we had a ton and a half of food set into boxes of types in our hall that we had to pit onboard Northabout. I think I might have talked about this before but I felt it should be mentioned again because of the performance tonight. Dad was cooking and he passed the menu round to see what people want. What it turned into was a starter of chicken tikka with fresh bread. Main course of rice with beef bolognese and more bread, then a pudding of steamed spotted dick(no laughing any americans out there) with admittedly lumpy instant custard. Compliments from all the new crew on the food. As it turns out the food The Mother had provided was far in extent of variety, quality and organisation they’d all expected. She’ll be pleased about that, it took up so much time for about eight weeks and the job of getting it all on the boat was titanic.

During dinner Eagles Quest arrived. They already had a dingy inflated so after dinner their four crew members came over for a chat. Their skipper, Shaun, Misha, their american cameraman, KD, the owner of the boat and a friend of his whose name I didn’t catch. It was really nice to have company especially given the very odd circumstances we’re all in. The plan is to over the next two days repeat the process alternating hosts. In the meantime we parted ways and now prepare for bed. As should I, see you tomorrow, bye.