We are going to make it! We have successfully worked our way through numerous bands of ice last night and today. We just talked to the Canadian Ice Service and learned the worst is behind us and we should expect minimal ice from here on. We will again run through the night traversing Larsen Sound into Victoria Straight. The day is grey, overcast, foggy with snow flurries. We are all up at the moment and feeling pretty jovial but not wanting to let down our guard until we are really through. We have started a tradition that Sunday means Chocolate Chip Cookies and they are about to appear!

We had a good laugh today. There is a guy, Juan, from Majorca, Spain who’s boat passed us yesterday. We were on the radio hooked in with Peter (our boat-traffic and ice updater) and having a conversation with Juan. He wanted Walt’s email. Walt goes: “alpha queen uncle alpha tango oscar alpha delta dot com.” Silence. Juan replies, “Walter, you sound like hiccups. Say again.” Walt says it again only with the q being Quebec. Juan tried to respond back, repeating the sequence, but accents and trucker lingo prevented it from ever working. By the end of it we were all hysterical. Maybe you had to be there!

Last night it was much darker than we have experienced from 11:30 to 2:30am so we are seeing the days shortening as we head south and August advances. Walt and I were on our shift at sunrise and it rose at our backs for the first time. We are headed home! We saw a huge male polar bear up on a cliff and Pat thinks he was eating bird eggs. He just stopped and watched us motor by, probably wishing we’d hang around a while so he could move beyond eggs. Fat Chance!

You may wonder what it is like to sleep while the boat is running. The waves crash against the side for huge slamming noise effects, throwing Geraldine up an down and side to side for weightlessness effects. So it is like trying to sleep riding a bronco bareback at a rodeo. But if you are tired enough you can do it! Pat has seen Shane levitated in bed with only the cacoon of his blankets restraining him!

Photos from 8/17:

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Photos from 8/18:

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Hi to all!  We have been traveling south in Peel Sound since 6:30 this morning and have seen rough and flat seas; right now it is flat. Shane and Walt put the new parts on the water maker while the seas were flat and have back flushed the system. The water temperature is 36.7 and Walt wants to wait until it is 40 degrees to try it again. So that is good progress and we are hopeful for a fix.

The ice report was full of warning as the winds are blowing ice down McClintock Channel, and in two days they expect the area ahead to be packed again. We are now running straight through tonight and tomorrow all day on shifts to sneak through as quickly as we can. The skies are grey with patches of fog.  We did have a moment of excitement when we were hailed by an Aussie boat coming the opposite direction!  We took their picture and they hope to get it published in their home town paper! They man who hailed us was on watch and didn’t want to chat so we don’t know much more, but it was encouraging to see someone made it! That man, Gary, who is sailing solo and had the motor troubles is up and running and is in Gjoa Haven now. Each night we make contact over the ham radio with a man in Cambridge Bay named Peter Semotiuk, and all boaters in the area tune in to and exchange info with him. He has the current ice information too and we get the benefit of hearing from others who are on the water.

I have nut bars just out of the oven and we are having a ham dinner tonight at 9:00 after Shane and Pat wake up. We have seen many seals and birds again but haven’t been close enough to shore to see much else. The land appears pretty flat with mountains only about 650 feet. There are NO trees and haven’t been for three weeks, we think, since Manvers Run, Labrador. There is green coloration however from lichen and low growing plants.

At about midnight we will pass Bellot Strait which is the northern most point of the North American continent. Everything else north is an island. Much love to you!

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Editor’s Note: Got this update from the crew, right after I posted the update from Charlotte.

We are anchored at the northern most town of our journey. It is all south from here. How does south to Alaska sound?

This day started out with a bang as we saw two polar bears from our anchorage climbing the cliff behind us. From then on the day was a bust as we were mugged by winds and waves, dodging ice as we went. The winds were 20-30 knots on the nose, all day. But we did fine and we got here amidst snow flurries, finding a message waiting for us from the mayor of Resolute offering to help us in every way we need. What could be nicer than that? When we had dinner Walt thanked the Lord for breakfast, lunch and dinner as we didn’t eat anything but nuts until dinner because it was so rough! Hopefully our parts have arrived and we can get the water maker going. All reports indicate that the ice is softening and will be opening up. Please keep praying! We look forward to your questions and the chance to answer them. Love to you all.

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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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