Open the below pictures in a full-screen slideshow by Flickr
July 12th, 2009 – At Sea, 70 42N 160 25W
by Herb McCormick
(July 12): The Lonely Planet guide to Alaska is one of dozens of reference books we have aboard Ocean Watch. As we turned the corner at Icy Cape this morning and headed east towards Barrow, we stopped for a moment to peruse the chapter on our upcoming port-of-call.
Barrow, we’ve learned, “is the largest Inupiat Inuit community in Alaska and one of the largest in North America.” Some 330 miles north of the Arctic Circle and less than 1,200 from the North Pole – Yo, Santa! – it also bears the distinction of being the northernmost community in the USA.
“Most people visit the town to say they’ve been at the top of the world or to view the midnight sun, which never sets between 10 May and 2 August,” reports Lonely Planet. “There is little other reason to make the expensive side trip to Barrow.”
Tell us about it!
For us, however, Barrow is hardly a side trip: It will serve several important purposes as we prepare for our run at the Northwest Passage, chief among them the addition to our crew of the Pacific Science Center’s Zeta Strickland, our first onboard educator on the voyage. By midday today, we were less than 80-miles out and the bustling skyline of Wainwright stood proud on the starboard shore. (Actually, we could see just one building, but it looked sort of tall!) But the run from Nome to Barrow has included several pleasant adventures, none more memorable than those that have occurred in just the last few hours.
The aforementioned midnight sun played a feature role in the first two. The 0300 change of watch (a.k.a. the
 |
| A bleached caribou skull on an island south of Icy Cape. |
“dog watch”) is generally a rather gloomy, pedestrian affair; the really tired guys slump down to their bunks, the less tired ones emerge from theirs. Conversation is usually brief and limited to the following topics: wind speed and direction; recent changes to either; boats previously spotted or currently visible (either directly or via radar); good-bye and good night. Sadly, sparkling and/or witty repartee are generally absent from said exchanges.
This morning’s watch change was completely different. A lovely easterly breeze was filling in from the general direction of the Seward Peninsula, and everyone on deck was animated and alive. The low, radiant sun had slid to the horizon but couldn’t quite convince itself to dip beneath it, and had instead hovered atop the razor-sharp delineation of dark-blue sea and pastel sky. The warm light, coupled with the relatively warm air, was magnificent. Cameras were a-clicking this way and that.
After awhile, the off-watch drifted below and Dave Logan, Michael Reynolds and I, thanks to the easterly now filling in at about 12 knots, shut down the engine and trimmed in the sails. We were close reaching, Ocean Watch’s very favorite point of sail, gently heeled into the ideal breeze, skimming across a level, blue carpet at a steady six knots. Someone, somewhere, coined the phrase “Champagne sailing,” and we’d popped a figurative bottle of Don Perignon.
To repeat: Flat water. Steady breeze. Stunning light. Perfect trim. 70 North. Simply put, sailing does not, ever, under any circumstances, get any better.
So, of course, we stopped sailing.
That’s because we had a fresh adventure to address. As part of our science mission, we’re carrying and will deploy three Arctic Sea weather buoys courtesy of scientist Ignatius Rigor at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Lab. On a very related note, before we left Seattle, Ignatius supplied us with the coordinates of a previously deployed drift buoy that had beached itself on a remote barrier island just south of Icy Cape in the Kasegaluk Lagoon – the buoy was high and dry, but its satellite transponder was working just fine. Skipper Mark Schrader had promised that if fair conditions presented themselves on the leg to Barrow, we’d see what we could do about retrieving it.
 |
| Dave Logan and Herb McCormick recover the beached buoy. |
As noted, the sailing was pretty great, but a promise is a promise, so we furled the sails, kicked the engine back over, nestled up near the isle, set the anchor, and dropped our rigid-inflatable dinghy into the water. Peering through the binoculars, oceanographer Reynolds, who definitely knows a previously deployed drift buoy when he sees one, spied the thing immediately. Logan, David Thoreson and I hopped in the dinghy and made for the beach.
A previously deployed drift buoy it was, and thankfully, a good deal lighter than the 175-pounds as earlier reported. After a brief stroll on the beach – Logan kicking away a well-chewed seal vertebra, and peering deeply into the sunken eyes of a bleached caribou skull – the VHF-handheld radio crackled to life, the captain suggested we, um, put ourselves in gear, and we loaded the buoy into the dinghy and zipped back to Ocean Watch.
It had been an exceedingly full day. It was 7:30 in the morning.
On we continued, and the next voice over the radio, this one unexpected, came from the pilot of a NOAA weather plane. Back in Barrow, Zeta – who from a previous email message to the boat made it quite clear that she’d landed safely, made contact with every useful soul in the town, established phone and Internet connections, and, you know, had lunch – had also alerted the folks at NOAA that we were on our final approach.
By early afternoon, the NOAA plane was overhead and taking photographs. As the plane disappeared, a pod of
 |
| Bryan Reeves and Captain Mark Schrader hoist the recovered buoy. |
whales cruised by, flanked by a team of walrus. We saw our first pack ice, and as the NOAA pilots cruised back to Barrow, they filed regular ice reports on what we could expect ahead. East of Pt. Franklin, there were stretches of solid ice interspersed with navigable leads. They radioed in coordinates and we plotted them on the charts. This was all getting pretty interesting.
If you ever get to the Arctic, and find yourself wending your way through pack ice, I can now highly recommend getting to know really good guys in airplanes. Their information was invaluable, and all delivered in the friendliest way imaginable. Thank you, NOAA.
Ocean Watch kept rolling. It was turning into quite the day.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.
