NW Passage Complete, but We’re Not Done Yet!

We left Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet) with a beautiful sunrise lighting our path around a point, silhouetting an iceberg in the distance. For many people, Mittimatalik signifies the end or the beginning of the NW Passage. With roughly another 2,000nm to go, we still have a whole other adventure to go, so for us, we designated the end of the arctic circle as our NW Passage. Some of our friends are already on their way to Greenland as we make our way down Baffin Island.

Our first views of the east coast of Baffin Island were breathtaking. Some of the world’s tallest cliffs are on this island, and the dramatic landscape surrounded by icebergs, is the exact visual I had been imagining the whole time. Baffin Island is the largest island in Canada, the second largest island in the Americas, and the fifth-largest island in the world. The Inuktitut name for Baffin Island is Qikiqtaaluk, which means “very big island”. Go figure! As part of the Arctic Archipelago, the 195,928 square miles is made up of mostly glaciers and arctic tundra, and is populated mostly by Inuit people.

While we are not on ice flow alert while sailing, we’re on high iceberg alert. The icebergs are not the issue, it’s the small bergy bits that chip off and float around near the icebergs. There are enough icebergs now that we have started to see a pattern in them. They tend to flow in a band and run around that corresponds with the underwater shoals. Which, in a way is a nice visual indicator that we have shallower waters ahead, but also makes for less relaxing watch.

At one point, we counted 71 icebergs within view, not counting the small bits! It really is hard to capture the scale of how it feels to see so many massive icebergs around you. Here is a shot of our radar over the chart showing how we were surrounded by large icebergs. Many of the smaller icebergs don’t show up on the radar, which is why being visually alert is important when navigating these waters.

Rusty and I are on watch together now that Eli has departed, and the conversations have been really fun since we haven’t seen that much of each other except at watch change. You start to get to know people really quickly when you’re on a 3 hour watch in the middle of the night!

We’re actually seeing darkness now, which came surprisingly quickly. For a while we’ve seen the sun set on one end and start to rise about 60 degrees over about an hour later. It’s the kind of an amazing thing you only get to experience at this latitude. It never gets complete dark up here, there is always still color in the sky and then at some point it just starts to get brighter. But as we come lower on the latitude lines, darkness increases.

Our first night watch was the darkest I’ve seen the sky since we were in Sitka. It was a clear night so I was extremely delighted to see the sky full of stars and planets. I had been waiting for a watch like this since we left because sailing at night is my favorite. I love the quiet of the surf, starry sky expanding as far as the eye can see, and if you’re lucky a moon rise over the horizon. However, there was a low fog that surrounded us which made it challenging to spot icebergs. We even saw some on our radar that we were 1/2 a mile away from but could not see it through the fog.

Squinting at the dark horizon, fog hovering, at one point, Rusty asked, “Is that the Northern lights?” I had been squinting pretty hard at the area he was pointing to and thought it was some strange fog, but soon it started to get brighter and we realized, we were looking at the northern lights!

What an amazing experience! It was not the brightest we’ve ever seen it (I think us PNW folk got spoiled this last May), but you could still see it moving across the sky. Trying to take a long exposure phone shot on a sailboat bouncing around wasn’t the best, but it’s something to remember the experience by. We even saw a shooting star, and I could not imagine a more magical night!

The next day was one of those perfectly clear blue sky days in the arctic. Icebergs still teeter on the horizon. We’re now so used to seeing them we’re not diverting out course to go over and see them. But these are definitely some of the biggest ones we’ve seen the whole journey so far.

We decided to anchor at Cape Hooper, which turned out to be a great place for exploration. We got almost 2.5 miles in with a little elevation to see our surroundings.

We found remnants of an old airport, but strangely enough, more modern and recent signs of human life including, an emergency shelter, a dinghy, abandoned equipment covered including a working power drill, water, and fuel.

While the guys had fun poking around, I had my face deep in the interesting plants I came across, and looking forward to trying to identify them when I’m back home. Did you know mushrooms can grow in the arctic?

It was such a warm day, exploring inshore had me all excited for another swim! I ran towards the water and enjoyed the crystal clear water and sandy beach and got a nice leisurely swim.

Graeme, Brian, and Rusty went fishing later that afternoon while Al, Shauna, and I took some time for ourselves on the boat. A dinner of cous cous veggies, and fresh char, and we were all feeling a little more rested ready for our next adventure.

And adventure we did. A little pressed for time for a crew exchange in Qikiqtarjuaq, we had to face strong headwinds today, which wouldn’t have been so bad (forecasted high teens) for us normally. But instead we saw 25knots on the nose and being closer to shore we saw shallower waters and current pushing us into the 4 foot swells felt like being on a luge on one wave, and then a hard smack on the next.

You can never capture the crazy fun parts of sailing, you’re usually too busy sailing in it! Tacking to avoid bergy bits for hours, it was a hard earned day of sailing. It’s one of those days that makes you feel accomplished, facing mother nature, and thriving through it all. Never did we doubt Dogbark would be able to handle the weather and when we finally reached our safe haven of Kivitoo, we gathered together for a meal of shrimp fried rice.

Graeme had just gotten off a call with Victor and the Ocean Cruising Club, along with most of the boats that completed the NW Passage this year. Some of the other boats got some real adventure experiences that we had not heard of until now, including one boat that got pushed up on the ice flow in Bellot Strait and spun around. I really can’t imagine what that experience was like and it made me feel even more grateful that we were able to navigate everything safely.

Turns out at the meeting, Victor declared Dogbark the “winners” for first boat to complete the NW Passage this year. Which was a little surprising considering we were the last to start! It certainly felt like a marathon at times. We may not have been able to make as many stops as some of the other boats, but we chose to prioritize safety and getting through the ice when the windows were right. We may be a fiberglass race boat, which is a bit unusual for the NW Passage, but I don’t think it’s any stranger than those who have rowed or kayaked the passage. Every vessel has it’s different strengths. Dogbark is outfitted with two crash bulkheads and heavily reinforced composite construction, which actually makes her more sturdy than most race boats.

Thanks to our hard work earlier today, we will get to enjoy a more leisurely day tomorrow (sleeping in till 7:30am!). Onto the next adventure!

One fun fact, when you look at a map of the earth from above, you can see that we’ve sailed about 1/3 around the top of the world! And you know, once you start one leg of a journey….must complete the rest!