(6:15 PM 71 deg 20′ N, 065 deg 55′ W) Another day cruising up the coast of Baffin Island. It feels like it has taken us a long time to get here and that we are not making much progress West, however when we reach Pond Inlet (early Friday) we’ll be at 80* west longitude, over Pittsburgh. At 1:00 am or so we saw a vertical pillar that resembled the Exodus pillar of fire. We don’t believe it was a coincidence that Walt had prayed that morning we would be guided by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, wait until we can upload these pictures!! The Sun sets around 11:30 pm and rises around 2:30 am, but it doesn’t drop much beyond the horizon so we do have close to 24 hours of daylight with a few hours of bright dusk. The weather was beautiful and the seas were calm all day, no big surprises. We continue to have gulls and other birds that swoop around us all day keeping us company. We did have a whale sighting 100 yards off the bow. We watched as the whale spouted a few times and gave a us a nice tale shot before it disappeared. We believe it was some whale other than a humpback with an all grey tale, perhaps a grey Whale. P.S. it is nice to report that my dad, Pat, is the lowest ranking crew member. Someone snapped a shot of the Chief Engineer brushing his teeth, however they missed the “other” crew member scrubbing the deck with his toothbrush, electric I may add, no wonder we don’t have any more storage space!! P.S.S. We did have a new experience this evening Sea Ice. It doesn’t show on the radar yet it was all around us, compounded with 1/8th of a mile or less visibility in fog. I spent 2 hours in the flybridge on the intercom as we picked our way through. A few times we ran into a corner and had to spin around and head back, if ever there was steaming by braile this was it. Our experiences before have prepared us for times such as these. You have to move through it believing you’ll find a way out as we could not see very far. It was a great team effort and we pushed through and were treated with chicken and dumplings once we were clear.

Current position 63 deg 52.8′ N, 060 deg 20.2′ W. We will soon head to leg 2 of recommended route through Baffin Bay. So far we have open water, occasional HUGE bergs, but very little ice in the water. It is 2:40 AM and the sun is about to rise! As we go we maintain a golden glow on the horizon all (short) night and gulls are criss-crossing in front of the bow. Kip & I are doing our shift while Pat & Shane sleep. We have been doing two-person, 4 hour shifts, but not staggered like we have done previously. Should be another nice day.

[Editor’s Note: We asked the crew to send updates more regularly, rather than at every big “happening.” If they keep up this pace, we may need to consolidate all the updates into a daily digest! Thanks to the crew for staying in touch. It helps us back home to know all is well.]