VIP.S89
Yacht Norwind
Good for the environment,
Real Science. Real Results.
VIP.S89
on the prop shaft also gave up the ghost, marooning them on
the edge of the pack ice south of Bellot Strait. This is when you
realize how remote an area this is. With no real repair facilities,
they managed to patch the half coupling but they could only run
the engine at low revs. They never recovered their anchor and
chain and had to limp the rest of the way towards the nearest
settlement of Cambridge Bay in the hope of finding a machine
shop of some kind and an airport for logistical support.
Just before turning the corner at Barrow Point to start heading
south we came across some small belts of hard, old ice. This
gets interesting at night as by now we had a few hours of semidarkness combined with poor visibility making the ice a real
threat to navigation. The smaller bits of dense, multi-year ice are
called ���growlers��� in the pilot book and are aptly named.
Heading south into the Bering Sea we came across three
offshore oil rig supply vessels: more proof that the big oil
companies are out to get that last bit of oil as the ice cap is
melting.
We arrived in Dutch Harbour in the Aleutian chain on the first
of September, where the trip through the North West Passage
really ends: 6400 miles in two months from Newport to Dutch
Harbour. All in all, a very nice trip on a good boat with a nice
bunch of people, and a great boat owner, thank you Billy Budd
and Cristina!
I had had the itch to do this trip for many years, and now I���ve
had a good scratch at doing it. Maybe good enough not to have
to come back unless there is some worthwhile environmental
protection work for us to do here.
Today, a hundred years after the collapse of the arctic whaling
industry, there are 10 oil exploration vessels overwintering at
Herschel island waiting for spring to start, looking for the new
black gold following the ancient pattern of rape and pillage
and who cares about the future environment anyway? Being
here myself on what is essentially a pleasure cruise, observing
all this commercial activity, it feels as if the world has shrunk
considerably. The Poles are, or were, the last bits of the wild and
frozen worlds on our planet, and it is busy here.
As much as I have dreamed of doing the NWP for years,
there is something of a bittersweet taste left after having now
done it. It was even more beautiful than I had imagined, but
now I have also seen how fast this beautiful wilderness is
melting and what we stand to lose. On the sweet side it makes
me feel even more inclined to do something about saving it, so
that future ancient mariners can also experience this once
in a lifetime trip.
January/February 2013 Professional Skipper 25
