Our fine mid-June weather as we departed Germany soon deteriorated. The sun had disappeared after the first day, and by the time we were approaching the Frisian island of Terschelling the weather was wet and blowing a near gale. All hands (both of us!) were busy with lookout, depthsounder, chartplotter, radar, and radio as we […]... Read More

Irene did indeed sail right through Denmark and Germany. Both countries have inland routes allowing seagoing vessels to travel from the North Sea to the Baltic and vice versa. We are always interested in a bit of freshwater travel and appreciated the added bonus of getting into the Baltic without rounding the north end of […]... Read More

Our winter in Ardrossan, Scotland? Predictably cold, dank, windy and long and bleak. But we did not hate it. We enjoyed our long dark evenings – cabin warm with the Reflex heater cranked up and kerosene lamp lit, gale howling in the rigging outside, watching episodes of “Outlander” on the laptop (maybe not the best […]... Read More

Our last post left us in St Peter’s, Nova Scotia, with us diving to scrub Irene’s bottom in preparation for crossing the North Atlantic to Ireland. We departed on a Friday – August 3rd, 2018 – in violation of the prohibition “Never Set Sail on a Friday.” We tend to take sailor’s superstitions with a […]... Read More

Dear Reader, We have neglected you. We’re sorry. We had good intentions but were thwarted by laziness, exhaustion, and writer’s block. We will do better in the future. When we last wrote, back in April of 2018, we wrote of being fresh out of the Arctic (which had actually happened in September 2017) and we […]... Read More

Irene fought her way back across the Davis Strait to North America. The strait in late September was cold, dark, plagued with icebergs, and nasty rough. A couple of gales hammered us, but they were expected given the time and place. The unpleasant surprise was the constant rough sea of Irene’s least favorite wave length. […]... Read More

Irene made a quick, if not particularly comfortable, passage from the Canadian Arctic to Aasiaat in Greenland. During early planning stages, we had thought to skip Greenland and head directly down Baffin Island to Labrador. As we popped out into the Baffin Sea, driven by a fierce arctic 75 knot tailwind, we altered plans based […]... Read More

Departing Fort Ross we were planning to exit the arctic as quickly as possible. Our ice and weather shore support team (Mike and Edie) let us know that we should not have much challenge with ice pack anymore. However, we were warned that a major blow was forecast (north 50 kts) in a few days. […]... Read More

This leg of the NWP is all about ice this year. Irene needs to get to, then through, the choke point of Bellot Strait. In some previous years this section has been almost ice free, but we are not so lucky in 2017. Ice pack breakup further north and north winds have filled the area […]... Read More

Morale was high aboard Irene during our stay at Cambridge Bay. We were halfway through the Arctic and ship and crew were in good shape. The only repair issue we had not been able to fix enroute (a broken watermaker pump bracket) could be welded here. We would top off our diesel fuel, having used […]... Read More