The morning was sunny and glorious with tons of birds everywhere. About 3:30 PM it grew grey and rainy. Pat noticed that when the fresh water rain drops hit the salt water ocean, they stay as a little pearl on the top of the water for a few seconds before disappearing. We are motoring along the north side of Lancaster Sound and the seas are calm and views of land good. We have been making bread nearly every day and today’s was cracked wheat with walnuts, onion and dill! We make a huge loaf in a big glass bowl and it is fun for us all to watch the rising, smell the baking, suffer through the cooling before we plunge in! Geraldine is running so well and we’ve all showered finally thanks to the full water tanks. Everyone is ready to do laundry in Resolute. We haven’t done it on the boat to conserve water and we are O-U-T! We have hatch and window covers that snap on. I made some black felt pieces that fit in under the covers to make the bedrooms dark so we can sleep during our shift. Since it is light all the time we need them all the time.

We saw a pack of seals herding fish today which was really neat. There were probably at least 20 seals popping up “waist high” and swimming with a dolphin like motion. We passed a glacier at water’s edge and got very close, but saw no calving. Then we came around a corner to see three polar bears on the shore! A mother and two large cubs. Wow! Pictures are so cool from today! Some have asked about the total eclipse 8/1 and if we saw it. It was totally cloud covered that morning and we were south of the total eclipse track so we missed it. There were many tourists in Iqaluit to see it who were disappointed.

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We are really heading west today and clicking off minutes of longitude! We are in the central time zone now and had to change our watches. Going west is easy when you are this far north. We got into Dundas Harbour on Devon Island (74 deg 31.8′ N, 082 deg 25.9′ W) at 1:30 in the morning and slept until 7:30 and departed.

Hi Geraldine fans. In a recent satellite phone conversation with my mom I broached the idea of recording a conversation with the crew and posting it on the website. It seemed like a good idea to allow your questions to guide the conversation. So… if you have burning questions you’d like to ask the crew, please leave them as a comment to this post, and we’ll see how many we can get to before the connection drops. No guarantees here, but hearing their voices would be nice! — Oh, and one question per customer please!

Sunday, we had a quiet worship service on the boat, then went into town and borrowed Allen’s truck from the Co-op (another Peets award) to ferry water to Geraldine by Jerry can. If you have ever carried 150 gallons of water in 2 – 7 gallon containers, filling, loading the truck, transferring to the dinghy, lifting and filling the boat tank, you know what Sunday afternoon was like. I know some of you are concerned we are not getting our exercise. We are not losing weight by the lack of good food; that is for sure, but we are losing weight – all of us.

At 1:30 AM (Monday) the wind changed and the anchorage in front of Pond Inlet became uncomfortable so we arose & left. We went up Navy Board Inlet and saw some spectacular scenery including glaciers, bergs and mountains that looked desert-like. Oh, and through in the Tetons too. We are now in the midst of Lancaster Sound heading for Devon island enroute to Resolute.

We are told that the watermaker parts should arrive on THE Wednesday fight. There is only one. Thanks to Charlotte for chasing these parts all the way to us.

Our electronics are going crazy as we approach magnetic north – very close to Resolute. We are back to the old fashion navigation. These magnetic anomalies are a new experience for me.

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