1st Sept
04:00 Steve and Tel slip us out of Gjoa into thick fog still. Lucky me i was still asleep and stayed there until 08:00, Ding and i were not on watch until then. Next stop Cambridge Bay. The latest ice charts showed some ice streaming south into Queen Maud......
It's is just incredible the difference in the topography now....................everywhere is so flat and lots of shallows and shaols. Admundsen very nearly lost "Fram" here in a storm in 1903. Simpson Strait is a narrow / shallow route that we have to take.
The tides and currents in Simpson were really weird.................one minute we had 0.5 knot with us then 100m later 3.0 knots against us........very strange. All we could put it down to, was the large number of islands in the strait causing back eddies and return flows.
Next thing we see a huge early warning mast with the large white domes on it. This is in the middle of no where, on King William Island !!!! Must be there for a reason though, who knows ??
Eventually we are clear of the Simpson Strait. It transpires Doug Pohl (ice guru) has contacted Fred (our ice and weather cordinator back in the UK) and told him to contact us. It is best to saty at least 17 to 20 miles of Jenny Lind island to avoid the 2 to 3/10 ice that has been blown past the island over the last week or so by the north east winds. That's all cool, we had that in mind, but is great to get confirmation from Doug that we are on the right lines.
We are into Queen Maud Gulf going south & west to avoid the ice from Jenny Lind island. My watch if 01:00, at 12:45 ding shouts down for me come up quick....................it's the Northern Lights !!!!!!!
Crikey i'm up like a shot..............on the port side there is a green curtain, it looks almost like a bank of cloud. It moves around a bit and comes and goes. Then disappears..............DOH !!!! i was hoping it was going to be better than that, but , hey ho i've seen it.........FANTASTIC !!!
Ding goes down off watch.........next minute, it comes back on the starboard side down on the horizon, better than before, a deeper shade of green, with flecks of red and purple in it .............wooooooowwwwwwwwww AAAAMAZING !!!. Ding comes back up and has another look.......then it just bursts across the sky like a huge flare gun...............just astonishing...it's right over us green flashes everywhere it was immense. The size of it was unbelievable........it took up at least 1/3 of the sky.......i tried in vain to take some photos............it was just hanging there and then swirling about above the sails, that were in full flight, on a beam reach doing 7.5 knots in 12 knots of wind......it would have made a superb photo........darn it............wish i had a better camera.
It all got a bit to much for me and i started crying (Ding never noticed i might add).........thinking of dad and how he saw it 70 years ago in Iceland and it being a lifelong dream to see it..........i must be getting soft in my old age ...........LOL :-)
It carried on for about 1.5 hours..............unforgettable !!!
It brought to mind a line from Fridtjof Nansen's book ........."Farthest North"................
"Clear evening, sparkling stars and flaming northern lights"...................how close my experience has just been to his..................it makes you feel quite small and insignificant.
What an astonishing place to see it though, in Queen Maud Gulf on a boat under full sail....i'll never forget it as long as i live..............phew !!!!!! wowzers
We plyed on and i sent a "SPOT" out to Fred, my family & friends to show we are in the designated spot. All is cool
2nd Sept
A lovely sunny morning turned into a very foggy afternoon....we hope to be in Cambridge Bay around 19:00 hours. The wind has dropped and we are motor sailing...........nothing spectacular to note for the rest of the crossing to Cambridge Bay. We arrived around 18:00, anchored about 500 m off the steel piled harbour wall.....the weather was better now. The yacht "Philos" was already in the bay, she had come over from Homer in Alaska. We met the Australian crew and skipper as they were returning to their boat from shore. Early bed ready to sort things out tomorrow.
Pick up the steering gear and the muffler from the RCMP, do the washing, get gas, fuel and water.
04:00 Steve and Tel slip us out of Gjoa into thick fog still. Lucky me i was still asleep and stayed there until 08:00, Ding and i were not on watch until then. Next stop Cambridge Bay. The latest ice charts showed some ice streaming south into Queen Maud......
It's is just incredible the difference in the topography now....................everywhere is so flat and lots of shallows and shaols. Admundsen very nearly lost "Fram" here in a storm in 1903. Simpson Strait is a narrow / shallow route that we have to take.
The tides and currents in Simpson were really weird.................one minute we had 0.5 knot with us then 100m later 3.0 knots against us........very strange. All we could put it down to, was the large number of islands in the strait causing back eddies and return flows.
Next thing we see a huge early warning mast with the large white domes on it. This is in the middle of no where, on King William Island !!!! Must be there for a reason though, who knows ??
Eventually we are clear of the Simpson Strait. It transpires Doug Pohl (ice guru) has contacted Fred (our ice and weather cordinator back in the UK) and told him to contact us. It is best to saty at least 17 to 20 miles of Jenny Lind island to avoid the 2 to 3/10 ice that has been blown past the island over the last week or so by the north east winds. That's all cool, we had that in mind, but is great to get confirmation from Doug that we are on the right lines.
We are into Queen Maud Gulf going south & west to avoid the ice from Jenny Lind island. My watch if 01:00, at 12:45 ding shouts down for me come up quick....................it's the Northern Lights !!!!!!!
Crikey i'm up like a shot..............on the port side there is a green curtain, it looks almost like a bank of cloud. It moves around a bit and comes and goes. Then disappears..............DOH !!!! i was hoping it was going to be better than that, but , hey ho i've seen it.........FANTASTIC !!!
Ding goes down off watch.........next minute, it comes back on the starboard side down on the horizon, better than before, a deeper shade of green, with flecks of red and purple in it .............wooooooowwwwwwwwww AAAAMAZING !!!. Ding comes back up and has another look.......then it just bursts across the sky like a huge flare gun...............just astonishing...it's right over us green flashes everywhere it was immense. The size of it was unbelievable........it took up at least 1/3 of the sky.......i tried in vain to take some photos............it was just hanging there and then swirling about above the sails, that were in full flight, on a beam reach doing 7.5 knots in 12 knots of wind......it would have made a superb photo........darn it............wish i had a better camera.
It all got a bit to much for me and i started crying (Ding never noticed i might add).........thinking of dad and how he saw it 70 years ago in Iceland and it being a lifelong dream to see it..........i must be getting soft in my old age ...........LOL :-)
It carried on for about 1.5 hours..............unforgettable !!!
It brought to mind a line from Fridtjof Nansen's book ........."Farthest North"................
"Clear evening, sparkling stars and flaming northern lights"...................how close my experience has just been to his..................it makes you feel quite small and insignificant.
What an astonishing place to see it though, in Queen Maud Gulf on a boat under full sail....i'll never forget it as long as i live..............phew !!!!!! wowzers
We plyed on and i sent a "SPOT" out to Fred, my family & friends to show we are in the designated spot. All is cool
2nd Sept
A lovely sunny morning turned into a very foggy afternoon....we hope to be in Cambridge Bay around 19:00 hours. The wind has dropped and we are motor sailing...........nothing spectacular to note for the rest of the crossing to Cambridge Bay. We arrived around 18:00, anchored about 500 m off the steel piled harbour wall.....the weather was better now. The yacht "Philos" was already in the bay, she had come over from Homer in Alaska. We met the Australian crew and skipper as they were returning to their boat from shore. Early bed ready to sort things out tomorrow.
Pick up the steering gear and the muffler from the RCMP, do the washing, get gas, fuel and water.
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