Expedition Report, 08.56
Do we gain a day when we cross the date line? I do believe so – and certainly hope that’s the case.
The weather has calmed down, which is very good after a rather special night with a stiff breeze and lots of waves. It gets very dark at midnight now, so we do double watches: one to keep a lookout for ice while another steers the boat. It is tiring, but absolutely neccessary. We are only a single accident away from failure … we must never forget that. In such conditions we reduce our sails to a minimum, in order to control the boat and sneak ahead, more or less in the right direction until the light returns. A half moon between the clouds helped us a bit last night.
We decided to sail through the ice belt rather than around it. We are now actually in the middle of a belt of drift ice that streches from Wrangel Island southwards. In tomorrow’s report we’ll tell you more than I can now. I assure you it’s quite exiting sailing!
However, we have reached another milestone: We have just crossed the International Date Line. And of course a Big Hurrah for my mother who has a birthday today!”
Best regards,
Børge
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Update 20.23: “Just a quick note to tell you that we managed to cut through the ice field. The ice was not as thick as along the eastern shore of the Taymyr Peninsula; nonetheless it was quite difficult since we sailed throughout the night. It was very dark with heavy swells at times. Luckily the wind was rather weak. At the moment we are at 70˚25’ N, 178˚30’ W. We’re sailing northeast. It’s the best we can do against this very difficult headwind.”
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To make progress we need to use all our skills, tacking against the headwind on the Chukchi Sea.
We spent the night sailing through a large ice field. Here’s Thorleif on watch. Today we continue charting a careful course through the ice.
Weather conditions certainly do change. After leaving Pevek we watched the sunset with calm seas.
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One week ago: Stas sailing in gale winds on the East Siberian Sea. (24 Aug.)
