Nome....sweet Nome

18th Sept

After a good kip we woke fairly early , weighed anchor and motored into Nome harbour.
Interesting place with quite a number of floating pontoons that we later found out are gold prospectors............they have "airlifts" (it's a system of blowing compressed air down one tube inside another and the bigger tube brings up debris from the sea floor.) It turns out there ar 11 submerged beaches off Nome, all covered in gold dust and nuggets. Showered and smelling sweet..........well sweeter than we have for a few days !!!
Into the metropolis we venture, coffee and wifi are the main item on the agenda.
We soon find it at the Airport Pizza........a cafe / restaurant. The owner Bill, a cool guy, he even volunteered to take us on a road trip around Nome and it's surrounding interesting locations. This was really good of him, but we soon discovered we had to leave tomorrow, big winds coming in later next week around the Aleutians.............a hurricane in fact.......ooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh joy.......just what we need.........NOT !!!!
Hopefully, we should reach Homer before it hits !!!!!!! HOPEFULLY !!!!!
Arctic Tern arrive later in the afternoon and we had a good few sherbets to celebrate the transiting of the NW passage.............phew ...........too many sherbets !!!!
Tel and i found the post office, bought a few stamps and cards...............the first we have seen in the last 3500 miles !!!!

19th Sept

Mike Johnson from "Gitane" (they overwintered in Cambridge Bay last year and came through this year), came on board for a look around.
Gordon Bennett, this guy has done some stuff.
He was a US Paratrooper / Ranger. Then he went into sailing square riggers and worked his way up to Bosun on the square rigger "Churchill". He has sailed all the 5 capes in the southern ocean, rounded Cape Horn on numerous occasions and is a member of the coveted "Cape Horn Association" ....................incredible bloke and really easy to get on with........................coool dude.

Steve has arranged for diesel at 15:00, Les has also sorted some for Arctic Tern. Nic, Nicky and Randall are departing Arctic Tern here, so farewells were the order of the day. Nic & Nicky reckon they will be in Homer, when we arrive. They are going on a road trip for a week or so.
We raft up at the Fuel dock and wait. We took on 150 US gallons, that should do to Homer.
The weather forecast is rough to start with strong winds, but improving and dying down over the next 12 hours. We decide to go for it............Homer here we come...........
We leave Nome around 16:30 and yes it's rough !!!
It's the shallow water in the Bering Sea that makes it so rough...................anywhere else a 25 to 35 knot wind would be a bit rough, but here..............it's really bad. Very choppy confused seas.
It does eventually drop off and we end up motoring & sailing through the 20th and 21st..........so nothing off any great interest to note there.
We spend our days doing sail changes, reading, watching movies.......sleeping and eating off course.

Of course !!!

The finish line for the Iditarod race from Anchorage

Sun in the wrong spot..........DOH !!!

Statue to the local militia from the second world war

This plague is a memorial to the local ethnic guard that fought the Japanese at the Battle of Attu. This was the only battle during WW2 fought on US soil.