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September 4th, 2009 – At Sea, Davis Strait, 65 33N, 60 53W
by Herb McCormick and Mark Schrader
(Sept. 4): Technically speaking, the true definition of a Northwest Passage journey, for those who embark upon one in either direction, is from the Arctic Circle to the Arctic Circle. Simple. Clean. And, as we’ve learned aboard Ocean Watch this summer, not even remotely easy.
But this morning, just shy of two months after crossing the Arctic Circle on a northbound heading in the waters west of Alaska, at just a few minutes before six in the morning local time, Ocean Watch again passed the Arctic Circle in a southerly direction to the east of the world’s most underrated isle, Baffin Island. In what at times seemed like a mariner’s version of David Lettermen’s Stupid Human Tricks, we started out on one side of North America, plotted a course over the top of the very continent, and somehow emerged whole on the other side.
Now, we are well and truly out of the Northwest Passage. Finally, we’ve put the cold, hard, scary, fragile, foreboding – and breathtaking – Arctic behind.
At the latitude of 66 degrees 33 minutes north, the Arctic Circle came to represent our own daunting version of
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| The crew hits the beach to mark the departure from the Northwest Passage. |
Route 66. For some odd, unknown reason, when we crossed it heading north, no one bothered to record the milestone in the Ship’s Log. We’ve checked and double-checked. It’s not there. In retrospect, perhaps we were all just too intimidated by the immensity of the span ahead, the sheer number of miles between the Entrance and the Exit, that to even jot down the moment in time seemed like an act of foolish audacity, a rude tempting of fate.
So we don’t know exactly when the Northwest Passage clock started ticking on the day of July 9th, but we do know when it finished. The skipper even made a sign and tacked it to the bulkhead: “9/04/09 @ 0554.” Six before six on Route 66. Looking back, there were some rather significant proceedings along the way.
It started momentously: Off the tenuous town of Shishmaref, its very foundation of permafrost crumbling into the sea, we steered into poorly charted waters in the wee hours to get a gauge on the precarious situation and promptly ran aground. Shishmaref is fifteen miles south of the Arctic Circle. Maybe that explains the lack of a log entry a couple of hours later: We were still hyperventilating.
On we sailed, propelled by a powerful 25-knot southeaster, to a place called Ledyard Bay, tucked behind a massive promontory called Cape Lisburne. Here we took stock and regained our equilibrium. The breeze blew harder and we hid behind the cape to wait out the weather, not for the last time, but never again in a spot quite so fetching.
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| The breeze blew harder and we hid behind the cape to wait out the weather. |
We put 70 North behind us and pulled into Barrow, the town that bills itself “The Top of the World,” after negotiating a harrowing ice field that took several years off our collective lives. The soothing, mellow sounds of hunters shooting seals served as a very appropriate backdrop, right up until a helpful shore-side local screamed, “The ice is coming in! You will lose your boat in ten hours!” Thankfully, we didn’t, though the wild night proved to be just a hint of coming attractions.
In Barrow, we met the unlikeliest of associates and allies, whale hunter Harry Brower, Jr. and whale biologist Craig George, who taught us about bowhead whales and the endless power of friendship. They were just the first of countless Arctic characters we met along the way. In fact, just 25 miles away, we made the acquaintance of obsessed ornithologist George Divoky, who’s been coming to Cooper Island to study black guillemots for 33 years. George’s lessons spanned the horizon from climate change to polar bears, and what it’s like to be flat-out crazy…in the best, most enduring way.
On Herschel Island, we crept in silence through a soundless cemetery, and paid our respects to the whalers of
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| More ice. Fields of ice. Mazes of ice. Riddles of ice. Ice floes. |
yore. Next we visited an Inuit town called Tuktoyaktuk, where I freaked out in a subterranean icehouse and learned a new word – Pingo! – that I couldn’t stop saying. (“Pingo. Pingo. Pingo. Pingo!”) And we met another cool soul, Inuit fisherman Wayne Thrasher, who shared with us his wisdom and his whitefish.
Then: More ice. Fields of ice. Mazes of ice. Riddles of ice. Ice floes. Ice bergs. Ice bubbles. Ice charts. Ice ahead. Ice behind. Ice. Ice. Ice.
We took it all in with some great sailors, folks who became friends as well, the crews of two sailboats wrapped up in the same goals, the same trip and many of the same experiences. The names Silent Sound and Baloum Gwen became regular words in our vocabulary, their trials and tribulations on almost equal footing as our own. The voyage was richer and better for having them part of our anchorages and our world.
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| The names Silent Sound and Baloum Gwen became became part of the volcabulary. |
On a hill by a harbor called Gjoa Haven, we sat on a hill and watched the wind ruffle the same waters in the same place that Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who pioneered the route through the Northwest Passage, did a little over a hundred years ago. We met Amundsen’s granddaughter, the legacy of one of those long, lonely winters, spinning polka records on the local radio.
We said and thought it time and again: You can’t make this stuff up.
Along the way, we read all the famous books. We cooked caribou burgers and ate Arctic char beside beachside fires. We hiked up ridges, took in grand vistas. We talked about ice. We saw more birds than you could imagine, and musk oxen, and polar bears. We thought about ice. We fought a little. We laughed a lot. We sailed into the ice.
And then, somehow, we put the Northwest Passage behind us. At some point, we were dodging big icebergs in the open ocean and the incredible vistas of Baffin Island appeared to starboard, with its glaciers and ice fields and snowy peaks, and that’s where it is today.
Skipper Mark Schrader has some thoughts on where we stand. Here they are:
“This report is a little late for a good reason, nothing having to do with butter. After a night of sailing, motorsailing and just plain motoring through sloppy and uncomfortable seas we’re now sailing on a great course with a steady following breeze of about 15 knots and polite seas. Ocean Watch is literally humming along at 7.5 to 9 knots.
“At the 0600 change of watch our day started with a party. Thanks to Dave Logan’s wife Joanna for her
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| Captain Mark Schrader celebrates with a special message. |
thoughtfulness way back in Seattle all the necessary party favors, hats, noise makers and decorations had been stowed away for whatever occasion might warrant their later use. (See main photo above.) This was it. We crossed the Arctic Circle, southbound, with sunny skies, an almost balmy 40° breeze and St. John’s in our sights. Two months ago we crossed it going the other way, toward a cold, grey and somewhat uncertain future.
“So we thought it appropriate this morning to greet the just awakened Dave and Herb with horns, hats and grins. It was immediately clear they would have preferred cinnamon rolls, eggs and maybe a little champagne. We did what we could. Some people just don’t like parties in the morning. Thank you Joanna, some of us had a good time, and of course it has been recorded.
“In three months of sailing this is the first real downwind opportunity we’ve had to try out different sail combinations. Right now we’re wing-and-wing with one reef in the mainsail, the full jib poled to port and the staysail set to starboard. This seems to be a very good and comfortable downwind combination for Ocean Watch.
“With the Raymarine pilot steering and keeping a good course the rest of us are free to enjoy the experience. Our weather forecast suggests we’ll have this northerly wind for a few days, maybe stronger toward the end of the weekend. With a full moon and a brief appearance of the Northern Lights late last night and the sailing this morning, all seems right with our world.”
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| To Mark, all seems right with the world as Ocean Watch heads south. |
And the Arctic Circle’s in our frothy wake. Along with the very abbreviated list above, we’ll never forget the dazzling and disorienting Arctic mirages, the hazy light and vapor that makes things appear quite unlike they are. Today, after our long, wonderful summer, the compass reading is relatively unfamiliar, but gratefully it’s not an illusion.
Nope, it’s not a mirage at all. Ocean Watch is flying south.
- Herb McCormick and Mark Schrader with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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