I got a call from Mom tonight to say that they have arrived in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska!  Since leaving Tuktoyaktuk, they have been unable to connect to their email, but have several updates to give us once they are reconnected.  They stopped off in Pullen Bay, and then did another all day, all night, all day run to arrive late tonight.  They are tired, and were ready to collapse!

Mom said that the Northern Lights were beautiful, but that they have only seen them the one night as the other nights have been overcast.

The phone connection was a little flakey and so our conversation ended up being cut off, but I was able to get an updated schedule.  They are on track, they believe, to get Mom to Nome so she can fly back to California on September 3rd, and then Pat to Dutch Harbor on September 11th.  Rebecca, Raime and I are hoping to fly up to meet Dad and Shane on September 13th.

At 10:30 PM and 141 degrees West, Shane and Pat were on watch and celebrated the border crossing with a Chocolate Chip Cookie! We have been going on shifts through the day and night and are in following seas between 5-10′ high. They lift us up and we surf down them as if being carried along by God’s hand. We are five miles off shore and heading toward Barrow and expect to be there tomorrow night. We hope to get fuel there and press on to Nome where Ed will come aboard and Kip will get off. We hope to be in Nome 9/3.

The Geraldine just keeps on steady and strong. We made 40 gallons of water yesterday successfully also. (When the seas calm down we are all longing for a shower and clean hair!)

The land is so low we cannot pick it up as a radar target. The fog and clouds block a view of the distant mountains. We passed a ship pulling a barge coming toward us and had a conversation over the radio. It is always fun to make contact with the other boats at sea with us.

PS at 6:30 PM Stopped for the night at Cross Island right off of Prudhoe Bay. Prudhoe Bay is locked down tight; no visitors allowed without Homeland Security clearance. We are relaxing behind a sand spit so low it didn’t show up on the radar until about 1 mile away; yet it provides the protection we need against the sea. (70 deg 29.359′ N; 147 deg 59.555′ W)

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Or in other words, Geraldine is once again the talk of the town! We thought it’d be a good idea to take the small boat entrance to get to the public dock (yes they have a real dock – a very big deal in this part of the world.) Skip Boselli will have the last laugh because I always was jumping him for cutting the corner. Well, this time I got caught & we are hard aground at the entrance to the harbor. The western Arctic is incredibly shallow. We have run all day & night in under 30 feet of water. We expect the same all the way to Barrow, AK. The Canadian Coast Guard tried to free us tonight but gave up because of a falling tide. They will resume in the morning. We are currently “listing” about 7 degrees to starboard so Pat will have trouble staying in his bunk tonight. We are all fine and in good humor. More soon. We have made arrangements for fuel in the AM and have been in contact with the RCMP; they are very helpful, but we are still very stuck!

8/25 PS: Last night was scary. As the tide went down, Geraldine listed to starboard about 20 degrees. The freezer drawer opened by itself, fell out on the floor with a loud bang, awakening Shane (Kip was already awake.) She woke me up. We started shifting weight to port to prevent further listing. In the midst of it all we looked up at the sky and saw brilliant greenish-white northern lights. We all prayed that God would watch over us and keep us safe. At 8 AM the inflatable from the CCG vessel Nahidik came to help pull us off the mound of gravel that captured us. We used the 150 HP of the inflatable , the bow thruster and finally Geraldine’s main engine to get us off. Within a few feet we were clear. We are now sitting at the dock in Tuktoyaktuk waiting on fuel, to reprovision and to make arrangements for the next crew change. You’ll see we had a taste of Salinas as we found beautiful lettuce in Tuk, even if if Romaine was $4.95 a head! We also cleared out of Canada through customs with the aid of the Tuktoyaktuk RCMP.

8/25 6:30 PM Anchored behind Pullen Island (69 deg 46′ N,134 deg 26′ W) We got fuel & successfully departed Tuktoyaktuk. We went over 10 miles from the harbor in 12 feet or less of water! Wow, is this ever different from the east coast.  Pat made another loaf of bread; onion and garlic and it was delicious!

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(69.4° N 133.0° W — Tuktoyaktuk, NWT) Editor’s Note: I got a satellite phonecall from the crew this afternoon. They were in the midst of an embarrassing “situation.” There are two entrances to the harbor at Tuk (Tuktoyaktuk), one for big boats, and one for small boats. The crew decided they were small, and paid for it by running aground just outside the harbor. During the call, a local was attempting to pull them off with his boat. It didn’t work. A Coast Guard boat in the area will swing by to pull them off in an hour or so. They will get into the harbor eventually, they will get to upload pictures, and they will get gas… er, diesel. They’ve been running in smooth, but shallow water for the last 36 hours—about 15 feet deep all day. Kip also reported the land is now covered with green grass. Very exciting to see color again! The water and air are both about 50ºF. Looking forward to seeing those photos!

(70º31.4′ N, 127º23.2 ‘ W — Amundsen Gulf) Greetings from The Geraldine! We have enjoyed a quiet and calm day today with one knot of wind and flat seas! Yea! After a good night’s sleep at a firm anchor, we started out at first light and have put lots of water under the boat so far today. The sky looked overcast and stormy but it’s been so pleasant. We saw some whales and a pair of birds we haven’t seen before that escorted us for a long time. The male had long plumes but the female did not as you’ll see in the pictures. We wish we had a book on the names of the birds we are seeing.

Our plan is to run through the night again as bad weather is coming behind us and we want to get to Tuktoyaktuk tomorrow afternoon. So all of us have been napping through the day to be ready for our night shifts. Kip is making plans to leave the journey for home in either Prudhoe Bay or Barrow to get back to start up in BSF. Ed Wright, Walt’s friend from the BSF School Program, will be joining the crew then for a few weeks.

Pat is downstairs making bread at the moment,in the fine Renaudin French tradition of four generations of bakers on his mother’s side of the family. Shane is driving, Walt is reading “90 degrees North, the quest for the North Pole”, and I am writing you! We successfully made 30 gallons of water for the second time and are hopeful that running at the lower pressure will do the trick so there will be no more failures.

Tonight we ate Arctic Char pasta; do you detect a theme? Reminds me of Forrest Gump and the many ways to fix shrimp! Char baked, Char pasta, Char chowder, Char sandwiches, Char scrambled eggs, Chicken-fried Char, Char a-la-mode, Char tartar…..we love it! Pat is hoping Arctic Char also restores hair loss! 🙂

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