Arctic

This whole transiting the Northwest Passage (The Passage) in a yacht is getting out of hand and many (maybe most) of the crews and boats trying it shouldn’t be anywhere near the place.

How can someone who has spent much of the last 20 years in the high latitudes in a yacht say that without being a hypocrite, you ask? Simple, the Northwest Passage is different from most other high latitude destinations normally visited by yachts. Read on for why.

John and I just returned from a challenging Arctic cruise, one of many we’ve undertaken over the last 20 years. On all our previous voyages, we’ve only ever seen the back end of one bear running away from us…we were on the boat, steaming out of an anchorage in Northern Spitsbergen.

Question: We are toying with the idea of sailing the northern route [to North America from Scotland] with stops in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland. Is that nuts? I know you have done it at least once if not more times. Our boats are sound, an Alden 48 and a Shannon 43, and we want to end up on the east coast rather than the Caribbean.

Question: We are planning to cross the North Atlantic east to west via the Arctic route in June on the way to an attempt to transit the North West Passage.

We plan to leave from Iceland on a passage to the west coast of Greenland and are wondering how close to round Cape Farewell [south tip of Greenland]? We are thinking that by waiting in Iceland for a good weather window we can get round as close as the ice will let us.

Question: We are planning a trip from eastern Canada to south west Greenland and return and have the following questions about ice [see specific questions and answers below summary answer].

Our last news letter described our circumnavigation of Newfoundland in the summer of 2005 and our return to Maine for the winter of 2005/06, with a plan to complete the refit of Morgan’s Cloud over the winter and move back aboard in the spring of 2006 to resume our cruising life. It was not to be.