I’ve realized that good Arctic weather is a blow in your favor and bad weather is a blow not in your favor. It feels like ever since that we crossed over to Canada we’ve had what would be considered a small craft advisory. As long as it’s not on the nose Salty loves the stronger winds.

So what’s the news? There’s a…. wait for it…. a BLOW and we’re waiting it out in an anchorage.

The past couple of days we were down wind sailing in 30+ kt wind and a 12′ swell. The swell caused us to roll around a lot and our auto pilot when on strike. Every time we would surf down a wave the auto pilot would go hard over and auto correct itself. We were literally sailing in a zig zag. We saw speeds of 17.3kts when surfing down waves, on average we were making 8.5kts.

We are trying to meet our deadline of September 14th to get into Nome, we really need to make some miles FAST! I’ll be flying out of Nome with the kids to Anchorage to rendezvous with my mum who’s flying from Australia.

The local weather reports state the weather will shift tomorrow night be we don’t have the luxury to wait around for it. If the wind shows signs of decreasing then we may make a break for it this evening when the kids go to bed, this will put us through the worst of it at night and come out with lighter winds by the morning. Looks like there’s a few days of good sailing and we hope to make Barrow before it turns again.

Fun fun fun on the high seas!

The first phase of the Northwest Passage was the ice, now we’re in the second phase…. the angry September seas.

SV Salty
69 56N 131 13W

What a gnarly night. I don’t think that I’m ever going to get another good night’s sleep again. Carl said that sleeping is for the Alaskan winter, I don’t know, come last night I was ready to fly out of Resolute for Alaska to start my hibernation.

There was another gale warning out for the area. The night before we got hammered with sustained 30kt winds with 60kt gusts. We rolled around a lot and it was quite uncomfortable. We were all looking forward to a good night’s sleep the following night but the stars didn’t align in our favor.

Another gale was predicted of 40kt winds. We really didn’t know what to do, there were no good options out there. And every different weather resource that we pulled had the wind coming from a slightly different direction. The neighboring anchorage would put us out of the swell but the glacier would amplify the wind. Make a 24 hour run to Dundes Harbour? We decided to get some rest and leave out once the wind picked up to around 20kts so we could make some good headway and find a more suitable anchorage along the way.

That afternoon we took the kids to shore to stretch their legs and by the time we got back to the boat the winds had picked up. We ate a quick dinner and thought we’d just move the boat to the north of the anchorage which had better coverage for the swell. Carl didn’t like the look of it, if we dragged we would end up on the beach. We decided to check out how the seas looked. Let’s just say everything went flying on the inside of the boat, I hadn’t stowed for a gale. We were safe but miserable so decided to try and anchor.

10pm came and we had already broken 2 anchor snubbers, the boat was pitching like crazy and we were wondering if the anchor chain would break. We had sustained 40kt winds gusting at 60kt and pretty huge swell rolling in with breakers. Is it possible to get seasick at anchor? Sure is! We knew it was pretty guaranteed that we would lose the anchor so we pulled it up, with much effort. AJ, Michelle and I were on the bow. AJ pointing the angle of the chain, Michelle manning the windlass and I was running between Carl and the bow as communication officer. The wind was so fierce that radios were deemed useless. I kept an eye on the horizon and would shout out every 15 seconds. GUST! We would all brace ourselves and continue pulling anchor after it had passed. All was well the only casualty was AJ’s hat. At one time we were all standing with Carl on the way out and we got slammed on the side by a wave, it was pretty overcast out so none of us were wearing sunglasses. It was in the 30Fs outside and I’m not exaggerating when a Arctic wave hits you with a 60kt spray it feels like needles in the eyes.

I was glad all the kids were in bed asleep and not getting knocked around by the rolling boat. We made it far enough off the coast just in case of some sort of engine failure before we turned and put out the stay sail to sail.

I retreated to our cabin around midnight thinking it was not the best idea to have a HUGE cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows after dinner.

After a rather exciting night we arrived at our next anchorage at 3:30am, the wind has calmed to 20kts and we are gently rolling. Last night was just a hazy dream.
Everyone is asleep and I’m making bread and putting on a happy face for the kiddos.

Capri woke up this morning with a confused look on her face.

“we’re moving?” – Capri

“daddy got us out of the ice” – Me

She popped her head up to check our surroundings and I think she almost brought out the crocodile tears.

The kids didn’t get a chance to get off the boat in the last 3 days other than to play on the ice sheet that we were anchored to. They jumped the crevasses and slid down the small hills, it was the most amazing playground you could dream of.

A few of us ventured out last night at 9:30pm in the dinghy to hike up one of the small rocky islands to look over and check the ice thickness that had us snug for the past few days. It was starting to break up but was still pretty thick. In 2 days’ time a westerly wind was predicted and we didn’t like the sound of being pushed into the cliffs with the rest of the pack ice. It was time to make a break for it.

We all went to bed for a quick couple of hours rest and got up at midnight to begin our exit with the outgoing tide. The ice was extremely thick and we tried a few times to land Salty on it to see if our steel battleship would break it but that sea ice is some tough stuff. We were only able to find small paths in the corn maze from hell and push the ice out of the way as we went, losing a lot of bottom paint a long the way. It was pretty slow going, we had been going for about 3 hours and the ice was only getting denser, it was time to turn back and retreat to the safety of our ice marina. The ice had already started to close in behind us, we were all getting a little stressed. Carl at the helm, AJ up in the crows nest and Michelle and I manning poles on the bow to help push ice. It was 4am and we were heading back, I decided to go to bed and get a quick 2 hour nap before the kids were going to be up, of course Crew was up at 5am. Bugga.

On our way back in Carl saw a break in the ice and decided to go for it, it paid off!! Making about 1 mile an hour, which is really quite good and are now in open water with only scattered pieces of ice to dodge.

We’re all glad to get going again and will soon make our way over to Canada but it was a little disappointing to leave our icy fairy tale land full of seals, musk ox, foxes and even a polar bear. We anchored to the ice sheet, took a polar dip and pushed 6/10th ice (unsuccessfully, I think we’re a 4/10th boat).

We were able to have an adventure as a family, I think it’s a feat to teach respect to your kids but when they see you protecting them from polar bears and motoring through thick ice they put you on such a high pedestal that your nose bleeds. The love and respect they have for Carl makes me proud, we are a family and a team. Team Salty!

We didn’t make it to 80N as planned but you know what 78N was probably better than any 80 could have given us.

This is SV Salty reporting that we are out of the ice and motoring hard towards Northumberland, Greenland, here we will anchor and make a plan for our Northwest Passage attempt.

As I went under I could feel a sharp sting all over my body, it was as if my skin and muscles immediately contracted putting pressure on all my organs. I swear time stopped and I had to manually tell my legs to start kicking to the surface or else I would sink all the way to the bottom to dance with the seals. It felt like an eternity before I reached the surfaced and took a gulping breath of air, it stung going in and felt like I was breathing salt water instead of fresh Arctic air around me.

No, I didn’t fall through the ice or get pushed in by a polar bear. even WORSE!!! I jumped in voluntarily!

The crew of SV Salty are now a part of the Arctic/ Polar Plunge club. Only highly intelligent, good looking people are initiated in this manner. FYI. The water was a chilly 40F and all soft bits did shrink to 1/10th their size.

By the time I made it to the swim ladder (all of 6′ away) I didn’t know if I could make it up. My whole body was shaking and I was still gasping for air. No matter how fast I breathed it felt like my lungs were rejecting the precious oxygen I was sending their way. All I could think is that if I don’t make it up the swim ladder I might just die. It’s safe to say I made it up the ladder and crawled on deck with all sorts of obscenities escaping loudly from my mouth.
I thought that as soon as I got out I would have to run inside and cover myself in blankets but it took only about 20 seconds for the shaking to stop and suddenly a wave of warmth passed through me. I probably could have stood on deck for cocktail hour, but I couldn’t find any of my swim suits – I packed them away, honestly who goes swimming in the Arctic?- and I doubt everyone wanted to watch me stand around in my hot pink Bonds bra, plus I had 30 days of growth on my legs.. eww! That in itself may have saved me from hypothermia.

A shot of whiskey was had by all to celebrate then BAM back into routine. I went straight into cooking dinner and Carl cleaning boat like today was any other day. Well these days today was really any other day.

7844N, 7244W, a dip in the water, a dance on the ice and a decent amount of canned pork.

SV Salty reporting that the Arctic is still a cool place to be.

Picture of Salty anchored to ice pack, that’s if iridium Go want to cooperate posting picture. Etah, Foulke Fjord, Greenland

Today we’re bound for Siorapaluk which is about 5-6 hours north of Thule. Carl, AJ and Michelle spent the morning lugging jerry cans of fuel up from the beach. There is no harbour or wharf here so the fuel truck drives down to the beach to fill jerry cans, we then use our dinghy to transport them back and forth from the boat. We have our fuel bladders on deck now. We filled them in Upernavik via fuel truck. Our tanks carry 400 gallons of diesel and the bladders combined carry an additional 350 gallons, Salty will go into the Northwest Passage with a hefty 750 gallons of diesel onboard. We topped off our tanks and bladders this morning just in case Resolute is unreachable because of ice. We’ve had three recommendations for the Northwest Passage:

1. Keep your fuel tanks topped up
2. Keep your water tanks topped up
3. Keep a good supply of chocolate

CHECK, CHECK and CHECK!

We’ve heard that due to the cold water temperatures our watermaker may start to fail soon so we’re making sure we make water every couple of days so when this happens we’ll have full tanks and plan on melting glacier ice and filling from streams. We have been in Greenland for about a month and today is the first time it has rained, it’s only a light drizzle, just enough to make the weather cold and miserable. Up in the Arctic you can’t rely on rain water to fill your tanks.

It’s rainy, foggy, cold and our boat looks like a laundromat. We’re all sniffing with colds. It’s time to move on to the next anchorage. The ice charts show 2/10, 4/10 and 9/10 ice before 80 degrees north, we’ll push as far up as safely possible before turning south.

SV Salty
77 27N, 69 14W