18th Aug
Entered Admiralty Inlet overnight, still motoring...........wind behind for first time in 1,000 miles but only 5 kn....not worth putting the sails up. Otherwise all going well.
Very different scenery here.......flatter and looks more like sandstone. As we enter the harbour we see there is a Canadian coast guard ice breaker in here as well.
Arrive Artcic Bay around 20:00............
Early night ......up early tomorrow.

Arty farty shot

Admiralty Inlet

Arctic bay , RCMP station

Canadian ice breaker

19th Aug
On shore for 08:00..........the RMCP station was open so in we went. Two very helpful mounties helped us sort out ice files, contact the fuel guy and the water guy.....all brought by trucks to the harbour mole (stone jetty, more of a rock armour jetty for the initiated amongst you !!!! LOL). We asked for a photo of them with the Queen's photo in the background on the wall, at first they declined (for security reasons........fair enough). Anyway, the older mountie was actually retired (only does relief work now) and eventually agreed to have his photo taken with Billy Connlly in front of the Queen........ha ha ha .......his words, not mine !!!!
Eventually the hotel opened and we went in for breakfast and some wifi. Got loads put on the blog........excellent !!!!
Contacted Bryn on Skype..................noice.............bit late to contact Gemma. Will try her tomorrow if we are still here. Steve and Ding checking the "gribs", weather and ice charts to find a good time to leave. Steve gets an email from our Ice Guru, Doug Pohl. He says go now to Fort Ross, we are certain to get through to Gjoa Haven. We have a few jobs to do on the boat...oil changes...etc etc. So we leave it until tomorrow.
Fuel & water are delivered to the mole..................holy polony.............the bows were nearly on the rocks !!! Thr water hose was too short, so the guys had to disappear for an extension.........by this time Steve's blood pressure was about 195 / 100..........the weather was looking a bit worse.......wind picking up and we still had the fuel to do............
I had a good craiche with the local kids, the most interesting being Terry...about 13 years old.......nice lad. He was astonished to hear we had sailed about 5,000 km to get here.
I was offered a Narwhal tusk today.........7'4" long............oooooo great how on earth am i supposed to get that in my rucsac !!!!! Anyway, not sure you can import stuff like that into the UK, i politely declined. Apparently the Inuit call them "Nar-whales".......not "Narwhals" as we do........guess they must be right.
We eventually got the water tanks filled....................yyyahhhhhhhhhhhoooooooooooo.......shower tonight !!!!!
Fuel guy arrives and at least he had plenty of hose. In it goes, Steve starts to look more and more quizical as i shout out the litres..........900, 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1440....that's it full. Hand on a mo, the port tank only holds 1163 litres !!!! We filled a couple of the jerry cans, after giving about 50 litres to Bob and the Wild Bunch.
So, we have a dilemma.......have we been swindled or is the port tank a larger capacity than we thought / were told / is in the design drawings. If we have a larger tank, that means we have at least another 300 miles or so of range, which is brilliant.
Ding visited the Craft shop today........a pair of seal skin boots $400............mmmmmmmmmmmm..................would love some .......................mmmmmmmm...............nah........can't afford !!!!!