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

On August 11, 2017, Irene rounded Cape Bathurst (catching a glimpse of the smoke from the famous Smoking Hills underground coal fire at sunset) and entered Amundsen Gulf and the region of the large islands of the Canadian Arctic. We were happy to be making progress to Cambridge Bay, 675nm from Tuk. Cambridge Bay is […]... Read More

Early in the planning stages of our NWP adventure we decided it made sense to stop at the Canadian Arctic native village of Tuktoyaktuk. It was one of the few places in the Arctic that a boat could refuel without ferrying jerry jugs in a dinghy, we could clear into Canada at the RCMP outpost, […]... Read More

We arrived at Cross Island late in the day on the first day of August, hoping to see a polar bear or two. Circling the island to find a good anchor spot we were impressed by an artistic, stark and somewhat spooky arrangement of whale bones that lined the island. We also saw a couple […]... Read More

A day after leaving Nome, at 1550 local time, Irene crossed latitude 66°33’46.9”N (the Arctic Circle) northbound – officially beginning our Arctic adventure. We felt good, we were as prepared as we could manage given limitations of time, budget, and our abilities. Of course, we were carrying some doubts and worries as well. We felt […]... Read More