Seeing the ice in clear skies was a hell of a reward for the heavy weather yesterday. Thus far we’ve stopped to admire two big bergs from close range, bringing in ICEBEAR under power (the wind, after all that fuss, shut down completely around 1200 noon as we rounded Cape Race) to within a hundred yards or so. I put the drone up to get a bird’s eye view, and the crew stopped to admire the beauty of nature’s most striking sculpture. Both bergs we stopped for had at some point in their decay rolled, for the tops of them were pure white and smooth as marble, highlighted in spots by deep turquoise cracks where they’d broken apart and re-frozen during their lifespan.
This has been all over my Facebook page the past couple of days, thanks to Kevin King, who crewed with us and took the footage. When the whale first approached, we were in awe, and just enjoyed his company. Kevin wanted to film right away, but I kind of discouraged him - if you're always behind the camera, you can't appreciate what's right in front of you. But the whale kept coming back! I was afraid jamming the camera down in the water might scare him off (he thinking it might be a harpoon!), but eventually we gave it a go. I think it was worth it!
This was written yesterday, posted today (Monday). Photos below.
We arrived into St. Croix yesterday afternoon after what I think was probably the easiest passage I’ve ever done. We sailed on starboard tack the whole way, broad reaching in anywhere from 8-25 knots, and only motoring for one hour, through a pretty calm spot when the sails were banging around and we had to roll up the jib.
I will have WAY more to say about this in due time, but wanted to post it immediately. Thanks to Dave for sharing - you know who you are. Might we have finally reached a tipping point when it comes to taking offshore sailing seriously, instead of a ride to warmer weather?
I just had an interesting email exchange with a friend whose in the (years-long) process of outfitting his boat for extended ocean cruising. The boat is similar to Arcturus, and we have similar ideas about things, and somehow got in touch a few years back. Anyway, we've had several of these types of exchanges. I won't say who it is out of respect for his privacy, but I want to publish my response to his latest email about rigging, sails and engines. I'll preface each section with what I'm about to discuss, but won't include anything specific that he's emailed me. What's your take?
Mia flew home on July 2, having met the crew for the return leg to Lunenburg. My dad had flown up from Pennsylvania to join us for a sail in another part of the world he’d never been to, in the hopes he’d get to see an iceberg or two (he did). August Sandberg, ISBJORN’s new full-time skipper, flew over from Norway to take Mia’s place as mate on ICEBEAR, get to know ‘the 59 North Experience,’ and spend some time training up with me.
Updates from IceBear
As I am typing this, I am sitting at the farm house in Sweden watching the tracker on the website, curiously waiting for the next update from Andy & IceBear via the YB tracker or the Sat phone. Now I know what it feels like for the families back home, following the progress from the home. The tracker and the new messages we have been posted along with it is a nice treat for us not being onboard, and I thought I could cut together a short blog with some updates from Andy.
Written on July 10, 2019:
Back in Sweden…
IceBear is currently offshore, about 100 nm from Lunenburg and off the coast of Nova Scotia. They had a nice passage south from St. Johns with a stop in the French Island St. Pierre. But this is the first time in a very long time that I am not onboard, sailing with Andy and the crew and finishing off the season. We made the decision a while back, we have now lived at the farm in Sweden over two years but never been there in the summer time.
Seeing the ice in clear skies was a hell of a reward for the heavy weather yesterday. Thus far we’ve stopped to admire two big bergs from close range, bringing in ICEBEAR under power (the wind, after all that fuss, shut down completely around 1200 noon as we rounded Cape Race) to within a hundred yards or so. I put the drone up to get a bird’s eye view, and the crew stopped to admire the beauty of nature’s most striking sculpture. Both bergs we stopped for had at some point in their decay rolled, for the tops of them were pure white and smooth as marble, highlighted in spots by deep turquoise cracks where they’d broken apart and re-frozen during their lifespan.
Above the village are staggering, vertical cliffs rising to 700-feet in sheer granite walls. A feature called ‘the Friar’ stands guard in the northwest, and after a heavy rain, waterfalls line the walls of the fjord on each side. The ‘streets’ are paved in hand-poured concrete and the locals get around on four-wheelers and snowmobiles, depending on the season. Only 60 remain in the village full-time, but they still maintain a school for the local kids - with just two teachers and six students, one of whom was graduating the 12th grade the week after we arrived. There is no pub, no restaurant or coffee shop, only a one-stop-shop for groceries, booze and hardware.
ICEBEAR encountered her first whales yesterday. After the wild breaching we saw a couple of humpbacks exhibiting in the distance earlier in the day, we’d kept a sharp lookout for the rest of the morning, hoping to spot more, and closer. Around lunchtime, I casually came up to check the water temperature on the speedo gauge at the helm. I heard the whale before I saw him, heard his spout off to port over my left shoulder. I turned just in time to see his low dorsal slip beneath the surface.
An hour after the dolphin show Tom spotted a whale spout to port. I saw the fin and shiny smooth top of a humpback gliding off to port. He spouted a few more times, then disappeared. Then, further in the distance, another spout. And suddenly a huge breach! There on the horizon, several more humpbacks were taking turns breaching and spouting, leaping full-body out of the ocean and crashing down in a huge splash.
Today is Mia & my 8th wedding anniversary! I never know what to celebrate more - the day we met, on December 28, 2006. Or the day we got married, June 18, 2011. After that first day, the second day seemed inevitable. One week after our wedding we flew back to the USA and prepared ARCTURUS for our first trans-Atlantic passage, leaving Annapolis harbor on July 4 (and forgetting the paper charts!), proceeding north and east to Newport first, then on up this way. We called at Lunenburg for the first time then (the last time I sailed with my mom), where we dropped my parents off and traded them for our friend Clint who joined us for the rest of the journey, continuing on to St. Pierre, our last stop before Ireland.
I hadn’t given a thought to the fact that we’re headed north again. Not just north, like from the Caribbean to Bermuda is a ‘northerly’ course, but north, as in towards THE north. We’ve only just crossed the 40th parallel, but it feels like an altogether different ocean here. The water is darker, colder. The air crisper. The sunrises and sunsets linger longer.
Which brings me to today’s topic. Mistakes. We’re at sea again, heading towards home waters on the Chesapeake, motor-boating through a completely flat sea and trying to get out ahead of the seasons first tropical disturbance, which we’re hoping doesn’t turn into a tropical depression. We’re only going 5.8 knots, with full sail up and the engine ticking over at 1,400 RPMs, because we didn’t fill up diesel in Bermuda. Mistake.
On deck she’s a bucking bronco. I was getting frustrated yesterday afternoon for our sluggish progress - it felt like we should have been able to easily make 7-8 knots in this breeze, even despite our horrible headsail (more on that in a sec). But all along we’d only make 6-6.5, and the boat would slam hard in the troughs of the bigger waves. So yesterday before dinner I tweaked a few settings, took the helm and ICEBEAR took flight.
Thus far we’ve covered 687 miles in a flash. The run up the Gulf Stream from Key West was fast and smooth, the wind from the southeast and never more than 12 knots, allowing us to lay our course around the Keys and never once kicking up that gnarly Gulf Stream sea. The current boosted us past 10 knots SOG and we rounded the turn north of the Bahamas in just a little over 24 hours.
Next morning we hoisted sail for a very brief blast up the coast to the underwater sculpture park off Moliniere Point. All the moorings were taken so Mia & I dropped the crew off next to the dive site and just drifted offshore while they explored. We anchored up again for the night just off the beach in 12 meters and did some more free diving before dinner. We left early the next morning, bound nonstop for San Juan.
This is different. ISBJORN’s been at sea over 20 days now. The world we’re about to re-enter won’t be the same from the one we left. Three weeks is enough time to guarantee that. We’ve been well and truly cutoff. Not so much as in the old days - I can text friends and family and we get weather reports of course. But no email. No news. I have no idea if the US government has re-opened yet, nor do I know anything else about the world outside our little bubble. Sailing across oceans is like traveling in a steam-punk time machine. In slow-motion, we’re moving into the future with no knowledge of what’s happened in the interval.
Welp, we did it. Mia & I got complacent and paid the price of letting our guard down. I figuratively kicked myself the first time I was at the top of the mast in the dark, freeing a horribly twisted spinnaker halyard, and then promised myself I’d not make the same mistake twice the second time I was up the rig cutting the wrapped sail down from the forestay and swinging around in the swell like an idiot.
About a week ago I had found a broken screw on deck, and had quizzed the crew at dinner to figure out where it had come from. I knew of course that it had come from the pole track on the front of the mast (it’s never good by the way to find broken screws that have fallen out of the rigging!). At the time we noticed just that one and two others - three, total - that had succumbed to the shearing forces of the sail on the pole. We just repositioned the car higher or lower on the track and figured that’d be fine.
A whale came to visit on my mom’s birthday, after I had written that tearful post about stargazing early in the morning, before dawn. Later that day the rains came while I was on watch, again alone, and RIGHT next to the boat a 20-30-foot minke whale made his presence known with a puff of air and a glimpse of his dorsal fin. He stayed with me for over an hour, diving and playing under the boat.
My mom would have turned 69 today had she lived. Today marks the second birthday I’ve celebrated at sea on this trans-Atlantic passage - mine, with Mia’s birthday balls dessert on Jan 25; and mom’s this morning, where on my 0200-0400 early morning watch I shared a quiet cry and contemplated the sea and the stars for two hours by myself in the cockpit, gazing out at the vastness and just being.
