Eric Forsyth Arrives in Dutch Harbor

Fiona arrived in Dutch Harbor, Alaska yesterday morning with her captain, Eric Forsyth, 77, the only person on board.  After the two remaining crew members, Joe and David, left the boat in Nome, Eric pushed off alone for the Aleutians.  The trip took almost a week.  He anchored before dawn Friday morning.

He next job, he said on his website, will be to find a crew for the next leg to the west coast of the United States.

This year Forsyth, unsponsored and financed, he said, "by my retirement checks," sailed with a changing cast of crew members on the Northwest Passage from his home port on Long Island, New York.

[For continuing information about Fiona's 2009 circumnavigation attempt of North America, see Forsyth's website, www.yachtfiona.com.]

The 2009 Ice Melt Season Ends

From the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder (September 17, 2009):

Arctic sea ice reaches annual minimum extent


Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest extent since the start of satellite measurements in 1979. While this year's minimum extent is above the record and near-record minimums of the last two years, it further reinforces the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent observed over the past thirty years.

[Note the amount of sea ice remaining the archepelago.  Even in the best of years that ice remains a challenge for any vessel transitting the Northwest Passage. -RR]

For the complete story click here: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2009/091709.html

Cambridge Bay

Fiona arrived in Cambridge Bay in fine "shirtsleeve" weather Tuesday evening, just in time for Happy Hour. Sprague Theobald and Chauncey Tanton from the M/V Bagan boarded for drinks and interviews with Fiona's crew. Sprague, an Emmy award winning filmmaker, is producing what he hopes will be a multi-part TV series on the Northwest Passage and the 2009 season in particular.

Bagan and Fiona are two of the ten vessels attempting the Northwest Passage in 2009.

Fiona is watering and fueling.  She will depart on Thursday. Russ, meanwhile, has reached the end of his Fiona saga. He needed to complete his trip before the 7th of September. The earliest Fiona could reach Nome will be September 9th or 10th, too late for Russ to meet his schedule. So, he flew out of Cambridge Bay (using the gravel runway) Wednesday afternoon on a Canadian North 737.

Dease Straits, right off Cambridge Bay, is where Roald Amundsen, coming from the east, first saw the whale ship Charles Hanson, Capt. James McKenna, coming from the west - from the Pacific - back in 1906. "'Vessel in sight, sir!'  With that meeting I knew I had done it.  The Northwest Passage was complete," wrote Amundsen.  The meeting of vessels proved the passage was possible. In Russ' case, he met his first eastbound vessel, Ocean Watch, Capt. Mark Shrader, in Gjoa Haven four days ago.

Fiona Underway to Cambridge Bay

Email from Russ Thursday August 20 after arriving in Gjoa Haven:

"We arrived in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut this morning around 10AM. Rainy and foggy but otherwise good to be here. This is where Roald Amundsen wintered with the Gjoa before proceeding west to complete his passage. At the end of his second winter in Gjoa Haven he encountered San Francisco whale ships in Deale Sound near present day Cambridge Bay, thus being the first to link both sides of the Northwest Passage.

"I'm leaving the trip in Cambridge Bay. There's no ice from here to Alaska so the [major] ice challenge of the trip is virtually over. Also, I've completed my own linkage of the Passage, having passed vessels bound from the Pacific. So I can leave with a sense of satisfaction."

On Friday August 21 he wrote: "Aground again [for the second time this trip] yesterday due to winds that piped up at the fueling 'dock' (really just a metal bulkhead set against the shore). Plans for dinner ashore and a long time in the rack, boat talk for 'bed,' something the crew has craved for days, are dashed. We are up with the tide at 11PM to maneuver away to deeper water. Our plan works well (although our execution is rather slap-stick); two anchors and the dingy as tug boat on the bow allow us to kedge, pulling against the wind to point the boat so we can make headway with ship's diesel.

Ocean Watch (one of the vessels making the passage from west to east) pulls in just as we are setting our anchor. I make a casual 'Ocean Watch, welcome to Gjoa Haven' call to them on VHF Channel 16 belying that only minutes before we are all 'thumbs, elbows and left legs' getting situated. Joe Waits says, "China called. They want their fire drill back." I am glad to be at anchor, rather than still performing in the 'midnight circus' getting off the 'dock' (with a bag over my head to hide embarrassment), before Ocean Watch gets in.

"Quite a feeling to meet the eastbounder and know the trip is all but complete. Amundsen must have felt similar though greater seeing the whaler in Dease, 'Vessel in sight!' Will leave noon tomorrow hopefully after brunch with with Capt. Mark Schrader and Ocean Watch crew ashore.

"P.S. No ice AT ALL sighted south of Matty Island. Amazing. No ice AT ALL sighted in my drink for a month. Tragic."

Fiona did leave Gjoa Haven Friday afternoon heading west for Cambridge Bay. Early this morning gale warnings were posted for the area they were traversing and the SPOT locator has shown they are not moving and apparently have taken safe refuge until the winds become more favorable. ~DH~

Fiona Reaches Resolute

Fiona arrived in the small Inuit hamlet of Resolute the morning of Tuesday, 4 Aug. In an email from Russ this evening he writes, "We're stuck in Resolute for a while. Eric was kind of thinking about heading south to 'wait it out,' 'it' being the ice melt. Last night's talk with the Enviro Canada pilots and ice experts convinced him otherwise. They said the lower Peel/Franklin won't begin to be passable by regular vessels for 'two to three weeks.' They have been up here long enough to have a grasp on these things. Unless something interesting develops this may be our turning point. We may be heading back from here in a week or two. We'll see." ~DH~

From Russ Roberts journal entry of 8/5/09:

Holed up in Resolute, we wait.  The ice situation 100 miles south in the Peel Sound and beyond prevents passage.  The Transport Canada people who fly the DHC-7 (or Dash 7, the same "Transport 922" from the Beechey overflight) on patrol, told us last night that we could expect 2 to 3 weeks before the ice opens.  This would put Fiona in a position of not getting beyond Alaska before it freezes up.

That dims prospects.  If we are to return to Greenland I would rather leave the boat and fly out of here.  My desire does not include turning around, backtracking where I have already been.  But I told Eric I am around until the beginning of September, so I have time to stick around and see what happens.

Yesterday I e-mailed everyone from the South Camp Inn here in Resolute.  Azzi, a Pakistani from Tanzania, moved to Resolute thirty one years ago.  It is his home name.  He married an Inuit and has children.  He is something of a kingpin in town.  When you want something done like getting diesel fuel, accessing the Internet, arranging heavy construction or having a meal, you see Azzi.  This seems to prove that in the middle of what seems like nowhere, a person can carve out financial success.  Azzi is, I am almost certain, the only man on Cornwallis Island who drives a Mercedes.  Even though it is a sensible 4 wheel drive "go in the snow" machine, it is a 'Benz.  Everyone else here seems to like Chevys.


Today we will pull Fiona close to shore.  Azzi has a 100 feet long fuel hose.  Since there is twenty feet of water to within a few feet of the beach, we can get close and put the diesel into the tanks without having to shuttle the fuel out in jerry cans.  Before that, though, Eric wants to "sound" the area using the inflatable dingy.  It looks like something of a "make-work" project to me.  However, it is certainly not a wrong thing to do.  More information is better than not enough.  Eric, though, seems the kind of man who always wants to be doing something.  An engineer, I do not think he is rewarded by the contemplative life.

Is There Enough Fuel?

It's the midnight watch.  We are becalmed at 74N/6430W.  Time to think.  I'm thinking we don't have enough fuel on board for this trip.  Right now we'd need 140 gallons to motor to Gjoa Haven.  I am thinking this because Resolute is virtually closed and may be completely closed [due to ice] before we could arrive under power.  The good news is that we talked to Debs [my sister who has kept the blog updated and provided us with ice and weather information en route, becoming in the process, an expert yachtsman's Northwest Passage advisor ... there aren't too many of them in the world!] on the Iridium telephone.  She tells us the "ice strip" with which we've been concerned at the entry to Lancaster Sound is gone.  So, we can go direct to the entry point with no deviations.  This will save some fuel.

Joe and I are up tonight discussing the "equal time point" [an aviation term that is the point at which it takes the same time to continue to a destination or return to a point of departure (or, in fact, any two chosen points)].  This would give us, at the "ETP" which is five hours beyond the Lancaster Sound entry point, five gallons remaining in the tank, at the present rate of burn, upon arrival at either Gjoa Haven or a return to Upernavik.  This ETP calculation figures that Resolute will not be an open destination for us.

8:00AM - My emotions are at a low ebb this morning.  Eric is electing to motor to 75N71W in hope of finding wind.  I believe we are close to "bingo" fuel.  Eric and I talked this morning.  He says, "That depends on how you define 'bingo.'"  One thing I believe, is that the definition cannot contain the work "luck."

5:00PM - Not as many fulmars.  We have perhaps two following the boat.  It is as if they want to give up.  Do they pick up my own pessimism?  We do, however, have a lot more little auks.  We see a few dozen.  The temperature is 46F.  The sea temperature is 51F.

-entry from Russ Roberts' journal

Cure for a Squeeky Belt

We changed a squeeky, rattling engine belt this morning.  It powered the alternator and refrigerator compressor.  My job was to hold a wrench.  There is not much room for more active helping in Fiona's little engine room.  The belt changing job took just a little more than an hour.

This morning I recall drinking last night's rum, a special concoction Geraldine Danon gave us aboard Fleur Australe.  That visit was quite noisy.  So much for the silence of the arctic.  Not with an attention craving three year old!  But on Fiona some peace reigned on a cold, foggy morning.  Overnight the freighter Sea Bird berthed just feet in front of our boat.  He left and sailed into the brash filled harbor just as we did a few hours later at 10:00AM.

6:43PM:  We are well underway.  I wonder whether Fleur got away today.  We are sailing, finally, in light wind.  Today I worked my second celestial navigation problem.

-entry from Russ Roberts' journal

Meeting Fleur Australe

Today we put on 300 liters of diesel (about 79 gallons).  The tanks are now topped off.

While in the Pisifik grocery store today I met the captain and crew of Fleur Australe, a French boat which is also attempting the Northwest Passage this year.  They are Phillippe Poupon and his wife and crewmate, Geraldine Danon.  The had several of their kids in tow.

Tonight Phillippe motored his dingy over to Fiona, picked us up and took us to Fleur for drinks.  There we met the rest of the family (the Poupons are sailing the Northwest Passage with a Jack Russell Terrier and four children, ages 1 to 13 years).  Geraldine's old make-up artist, Georges, completes the crew.  Make-up artist?  Geraldine is an actor in France.  On this trip she's Fleur documentary filmmaker.  Cameras are mounted around the nine month old steel ketch.  She is often seen with a camera on her shoulder.  It makes my effort with a little Canon seems paltry.

Phillippe, also known as "Phillou,"  is a veteran sailor.  While on board he showed us a book filled with his accomplishments, included winning two single handed transatlantic O-Star races more than twenty years ago.

Will we leave Upernavik tomorrow to begin crossing Baffin Bay.

-entry from Russ Roberts' journal