Crossing the Baffin Bay 2: Arctic Canada

This entry covers the time from Friday evening to Sunday evening when we arrived in Pond Inlet, Canada.

The first night of the crossing went smooth, only between 2300 and 0600 (UTC-4) heavy fog descended. With only about 100 m visibility, the navigation strategy changes. Radar on 3 or 4 NM range and make sure to maintain more than 1 NM distance to any iceberg as to avoid their halo of growlers. And we still have plenty of icebergs spread at a pitch of about 8NM. And continuously observe the sea ahead. We are hammering at 9 knots, a collision would be consequential.

In the morning visibility improved as the fog was replaced by rain. 7°C outside temperature, the trend is downwards. Inside we heat the salon to ~18°C. Both temperatures will drop as we near continental climate. Snow is forecast to welcome us in Pond Inlet. Water temperature is also in a continuous plunge from 8°C to ~6°C as we close in on the cold Labrador Current.

Since a few weeks ago, I receive a weekly email update on the conditions in the Northwest Passage (NWP) from Victor Weyer, a Canadian gentleman with decades of Arctic experience. Victor has advised over 100 sailboats undertaking the passage for many years and knows all the details - be it regarding the weather, ice, routing, anchorage, provisioning and contact information. It is very comforting to be in connected to such a person on a voyage like this one. I judge this week’s report generally positive. Compared to other years, the first, eastern, half of the NWP is opening up earlier, while rather atypically, the western section of the NWP to Alaska is still ice-locked as I write this. It is not a given that we will be able to make the passage but it looks like it shall open up once we get there in about 2 weeks.

Upon departure from Upernavik Vanuily and Coro Coro were about 20 NM behind. We were making excellent speed and are now about 60 NM ahead of them. We have the better suited set of sails for the conditions and plenty of crew to operate the sails safely. Full main and gennaker give plenty of power with winds between 18 and 23 knots and true wind angles of about 150° to push our tanker at 9 knots.

We anticipate that the wind will shut down as we near the Canadian coast. At about 1 am on Sunday morning the time has come to furl the gennaker and start an engine for the last 100 NM to Pond Inlet. Fortunately the sea state is calm and only, like previous night, heavy fog impairs navigation.

The 3-hour night shifts are working fine for us. With the sun always up, I close all shades and stick my head under a pillow. As always, my dreams on passage are a bit wild and I remember them much better than otherwise after waking. It must have to do with the fact that the sensory input from motion and acoustic never stops and that the waking is abruptly and from deeper state of sleep. The usual theme is some type of disaster, now involving ice, rocks and ruptured hulls, which is a change from the strong winds and high waves theme.

Soon we shall either tie up or anchor at Pond Inlet. Curious to see how things will be in Arctic Canada!Read more