The Day We Did ALL the Things!

It’s been a rather exciting 24 hours since I last wrote. As soon as I popped my head on deck for watch, we were just about to push through our first real batch of ice. Ice pole and all. With Al hand steering and Graeme looking ahead from aloft, everyone went into go mode.

Our crew popped into action with Rusty and Brian on the bow with an ice pole, pushing the boat away from large pieces. I held my breathe as the soft crunch of ice against the hull slowly scraped by.

We pushed through our first lead successfully, but unfortunately as we came to our next opening, we realized the opening that was there 10 minutes ago, that our friends Lumi had pushed through just an ahead of us, was no longer there. We thought we could hug the eastern shore of Dixon Island, but the currents had already pushed the ice too far into the shore. We launched the drone to confirm and scope out other possibilities.

It was confirmed, we would not be able to pass as planned and luckily were still able to turn around and go around the other side between Dixon and Hobday Island. We found a good clearing and made our way along the eastern shore of Prince of Wales Island.

After an eventful few hours, that was already preceded by a couple days of hard sailing, the sun would soon be down and we needed to make a decision. With a large amount of ice between us and Bellot Strait, we decided we would find protection in Willis Bay. We watched on AIS as Lumi continued across Peel Sound towards False Strait. So close and yet so far! In real life, it was ice as far as we could see. We knew Lumi was somewhere beyond the ice, just 7.5 miles away.

The excitement was not over though! Graeme’s baby beluga song worked and we were greeted by a pod of 20 belugas just before we turned into Willis Bay. They were so close to shore, they looked like beach waves. According to Rusty’s chart, the water drops down to 70 ft right along the shore. Huzzah! We’ve now seen polar bears, belugas, now all we need is a NARWAL!

At the same time another parade of boats coming out of Willis Bay passed us, lots of cheers and radio chats shared, and it was really exciting to see sailboats who were coming westbound. Promising news!

Just as we anchored and started preparing a dinner of fancy ramen, Graeme did a bit more weather checking. If these three boats left the bay because of the possibility of ice moving in on them…and if we had a fairly clear path now towards False Strait…why would we stay? We needed to be out in the morning if we wanted to make the tide window into Bellot Strait.

So after a short 15 minute break, Graeme fired up the engine. We said goodbye to the largest polar bear we’ve seen so far, and into the ice we went for another adventure!

After a couple hours into Peel Sound, twilight setting in, we found ourselves against another long wall of impassable ice. Our instinct was to head north until we found a better lead through the ice, and we noticed there was a coast guard ice breaker that was in the area we were eyeing so we asked if they had eyes on the ice from where they were. What we got was information about more polar bears near us and that the ice did start to clear further north.

While we searched for the nearby polar bears, they hailed us back and offered in the most friendliest of voices, “If you would like, we could cut across for you and clear a lane for you.” The look on all our faces was as if we won the lottery.

We moved closer to them and as they fired up and moved in front, they gave Graeme the clear instructions of, “Try to stay as close as you can to us, we’ll break ice at 9 knots.” Graeme kicked up the throttle and off we went!

Dodging the smaller pieces left behind, we were all very impressed with how much force came out of the icebreaker, and yet how silent and effortless it was for them. I suppose the largest Canadian Coastguard boat of 120m and 11,000 tons will make anything seem easy to bust through! After we got through we all breathed a collective sigh of relief and celebrated. Those friendly Canadians really living up to their reputation! Thank you Louis S. St-Laurent! They easily saved us over an hour of navigating as we were trying to race the remaining daylight.

It had only been 7.5 hours since I started my watch and it already felt like we had experienced a week’s worth of highlights and work. Eli pointed out that of the highlights we just experienced, very few people will ever experience in their lifetime. It’s always good to take a moment for gratitude and we were ever so thankful.

We made it to False Strait, where we saw Lumi and Libertaire anchored together in a lovely cove. It was only 150ft across so we thought it might be too crowded for a third boat, so we moved to the next little cove over, Leask Cove and dropped anchor. Small ice remained drifting around us, but we all took a moment to celebrate making it to anchor. Hearing it slide up against the hull is normal right? Eventually the wind came through and the ice moved away from us, except when we were just about to tuck in for the night, a very large piece hung just astern of us.

“Well…suit up, we’re on anchor watch now,” said Graeme. Brian and Graeme stayed up until 2:30am, but didn’t switch out watches so they must’ve though the danger was less threatening. But around 4am, Al awoke to our anchor dragging. After resetting it, we stayed up for anchor watch until the group rallied back together around 6:30am to make a game plan.

We had originally planned to leave by 7am to enter Bellot Strait, but with the high winds (30knots) coming directing into the strait, and we were unable to get satellite images of the area in question, we sat with our dilemma. We saw Lumi moving around on AIS so we thought to radio them and check in to see what they were up to. They were in the midst of re-anchoring and had sent a drone into the strait. It looked clear of ice, but they were leaning towards waiting out the chop and possibly making the transit at the next tide window tonight. The Louis S. St-Laurent chimed to let us know that there was 9/10 ice several miles away outside the entrance to Bellot Strait and the forecasted wind there would be a possibility of the ice coming down towards us. Either way we needed to move some point soon if we didn’t want to get iced in.

As Graeme contemplated his decision, we decided to check out the entrance to Bellot Strait. The 30knots and sleet stings you in the face rightly so. A freighter was coming through westbound, so we decided to hail them to see if they could give us an ice report.

“All clear, you guys will be just fine.” – they said.

Considering the wind, the water was relatively flat. We were expecting much rougher waters from the headwinds, but everything was looking pretty good so far.

“Well…let’s do it team! Does everyone feel good about it?” – Graeme. We all enthusiastically agreed.

Navigating Bellot Strait is particularly challenging because the tides on either openings of the narrow 18 mile strait are different from each other. It is a key passageway in the Northwest Passage and making it through would be a huge milestone for our crew. With winds and challenging currents that can create strong forces, this area is known for dangerous encounters including a sailboat that sank due to converging ice pressure in 2018. The crew were in survival suits and very luckily rescued and survived. The water is 33 degrees here and NOT something you want to be in for long.

The crew all stood watch, withstanding the rain and wind as Al navigated very ever changing water conditions. Everyone was excited and in good spirits!

Soon enough, Fort Ross was within sight and it feels within minutes of that, we were comfortably anchored at last. PHEW! What a run!

Everyone is getting warmed back up before a shore exploration…(perhaps to scope the cabin out for a party with our friends if they decide to make the pass today?). With bellies full of a yummy minestrone type soup, the crew is already making a game plan for where our next excursions will take us. We still have about another 2,500nm to go in our journey, but we are all feeling especially accomplished today!