Tigvariak Island Gale

For those of you who are not tracker junkies, we have moved to a new island, Tigvariak, which is at the entrance to Mikkelsen Bay. The reason was a weather forecast. Based on another helpful tip from our friends who work these waters for a living, we moved in as close as we dared. As some of you may remember, we are a deep draft hull that requires at least 10’ of water, so we prefer anchorages that have a bit more than that. (Waves, tide, and wind all reduce water under our keel.) There aren’t many of those around here. What to do?

We kicked around going back to Elson at Barrow, but heard from 2 sources that it had silted in and might not be usable for us.

Cross Island was well protected from the west, but too open from the south where I suspected the wind might come from at some point.

Then Eric suggested Tigvariak and Mikkelsen. Thanks Eric, you rock! As I type this on reasonably fast internet, it is blowing 28, gusting 32. While there is some wave action from reflection, there is less than 1’ chop. We have 15:1 scope out, and a heavy duty storm bridle. Our great big 10’ metal keel may not be good for shallow places, but it sure smoothes out our wave action. Savai cooked eggs and bagels, the girls did their scientific observations and are now in school for the morning, and I downloaded high res satellite images which show a thin line of optimism, enough to sustain hope for another day. It is business as usual on Dogbark.

The big question is what is all this wind doing to the ice? Are there any bush pilots reading this blog by chance? Is tomorrow the day the passage opens?