Peel Sound

(This is a long one sorry everyone) Current Position: 71 deg 14.45N 096 deg 28.24W So I said I hope Han's brings some good weather with him, and so far it's been pretty great. We left Resolute the night of the 15th after dinner and by the time we got the sails up we were in the middle of a blizzard and it was blowing 20-25 kts from the west. This may not be exactly what you would picture as good weather but it was a welcome change and gave for some good excitement. With the wind up we couldn't use the auto-pilot so I got some very cold but fun helm time in the snow. For the next 24 hours we only had to motor to get through a few strips of pack ice at the top of Peel Sound. We had great wind all the way down this first stretch of Peel Sound with 15-20 kts on the beam or just a little bit behind. Now I have to say, coincidence is an incredibly funny phenomenon. As we were sailing along I was thinking about how a marine photographer, who happened to also have lunch with us on Billy Budd a few days ago, said that Beluga whales only come up here for a few weeks, maybe a month tops, and she thought that at this point they had likely already come and gone. I was standing by the rail thinking well maybe there will still be a few up here and we'll see them on their way out. BAM Beluga instantly pops up right next to me. I couldn't believe it. After that we kept seeing the little white whales every 20 minutes or so as the swam North against us up the sound. They were amazing. We sailed all the way down to False Strait which is a bay just north of the entrance to Bellot Strait. There we spent the night alongside Dodo's Delight, a 33 ft. fiberglass boat owned by Bob Shepton out of Scotland. Bob is somewhat of an Arctic guru at this point and has been coming North to Greenland and the surrounding area for at least the past 10 years (not sure exactly). On board with him were 4 climbers from South Africa who he brought up to climb in Greenland. They sailed all the way from Scotland with him and are continuing on through the Northwest Passage. Before this trip 2 of them had never been on a sailboat…the phrase baptism by fire comes to mind but I think ice is more appropriate. The next day we both headed through Bellot Strait with plans of meeting on the other side at Fort Ross which is a hut from the old Hudson Bay Trading Co. Bellot Strait is beautiful and famous for its ripping current that can top 8 kts…It connects Peel Sound to Prince Regent Sound and marks the Northern most point of the continental Americas. Hans and Alex have now both rounded the Northern and Southern most points of the Americas on Nordwind…pretty impressive. We had a very relaxing motor through the strait and arrived at Fort Ross in the early afternoon and went ashore after lunch. I have to say that this is the first place on the trip that I would really like to come back to. It was beautiful. There were 2 buildings there, 1 was an old house from the 50s or 60s that was really beat up but had the remnants of an electric stove and refrigerator inside. The other was a fully intact and equipped hut maintained as a refuge for whoever may need one. The hut was fully stocked with beds, pots, pans, some food, matches, a stove, barrels of diesel, shotgun shells of a varying bear deterring variety, spray in insulating foam for any leaks in the existing insulation, shovels, brooms, and even a bit of what looked like very old rum… all in all very well provisioned. The hut was just up from the beach on a little peninsula on the Prince Regent side of the strait and had beautiful rolling, albeit rocky, hills for a backdrop. There was also a lake just up from the beach that had a field stretched out behind it. Maybe it was just the fact that there was grass, but I thought it was spectacular. That night we had the entire Dodo's crew over for dinner, which was a lot of fun and, thanks to Laura, a well fed success. Turning out food for 15 people on a boat is no small feat. We woke the next morning a little groggy but headed back to Bellot Strait to resume our trip south. This time through the strait we hit a 5-6 kt current head on and really put the 480hp engine to work. The water was flat calm other than the current ripples and with the sun out it was actually a really nice day. I was sitting on deck reading glancing up every so often, but we had just come through the strait the day before…on one of my glances I saw some seagulls flying around a white spot on land that looked like it had legs. Now I couldn't possibly tell you the number of times that in the heat of the moment I've turned chunks of ice into polar bears in my mind, and just the day before I excitedly thought a flock of Canadian geese by the lake might be Caribou…This time I said nothing, went and got the binoculars and took a good long hard look before shouting POLAR BEAR!!! We took the boat right up along shore, thanks to the 60m depth 4m from shore, and followed this massive polar bear along as he tried to scamper away from us along the beach. He even ended up swimming a little but gave up quickly because of the current. After lots of excited photo taking we continued on towards these beautiful orange cliffs with bright green grass patches which were equally photogenic. As we were taking pictures of the cliffs we happened on ANOTHER bear hanging out at the bottom! Boom 2 polar bears in 20 minutes. Great success. We are now anchored up in a cove on one of the "Tasmania Islands" 50 miles south of Bellot Strait. It's blowing 25-30 kts right now out of the south which is good because there is a massive plug of ice locked up all around King William Island that is blocking our progress. Hopefully the wind will break up the ice and allow us to pass but until then we are stuck waiting... To see the ice charts that we get, google "Canadian ice charts" and click the first link. Then click on the map for the area where we are, bottom left part of the Northwest Passage, and then you can download a bunch of .pdf or .gif files which will show you the daily ice flows for the area.