The Arctic Cruise 2008

CRUISE TO THE ARCTIC 2008
Our cruise started on time, no last minute crises apart from Louise, who lost her passport on a trip the previous week and just managed to get it back in the nick of time. Besides Louise, the crew consisted of Wayne and Jim. We were all onboard for high water and although we were accompanied by Bob on Fireplace to give us the usual assist in the Patchogue River we had never less than two feet under the keel as we powered into the Bay, clearly the winter dredging has really made a difference. We managed to sail along the south coast of Fire Island and experienced some of the worst weather of the trip when frontal squalls came though about 9:30 pm when we were south of Shinnecock Inlet. The wind gusted up to 30 knots and veered violently. There was a lot of confusion and some sail flogging but we got through without damage, although later in the passage across the Atlantic a tear developed in the jib, which may have had its origin in those wild moments. At Block Island we picked up a mooring and made our traditional walk to the Southeast Lighthouse. In town I ran into my old sailing buddy, Charles, who had crewed for me with his wife, Mary, aboard Iona back in the early ’70s. After Happy Hour in the cockpit and dinner at ‘The Oar’ we left early in the morning for Flores, in the Azores.

The first day, we had light winds and headed a little south to clear Georges Bank. The winds became erratic and we powered or sailed if we could. A few days out we noticed the tear in the Genoa jib and when we got a chance we bent on the Yankee. The GRIB wind forecast, which we received daily via ‘Sailmail’, showed a huge high pressure system settling over the Atlantic from New England to the Azores, we edged up to 42º 30’N to find some wind, although our destination, Flores, lay about 39ºN. Sometimes the wind picked up to a little under 30 knots and we reefed the mainsail, but mostly we had light sailing. Two new pieces of equipment installed in the past winter worked well. A new autopilot, George II, replaced the old Benmar, George I, which was given honorable retirement after 24 years of service. A device called AIS (Automatic Information System, I think) displayed the position, course and speed of nearby large ships, which improved our feeling of security when we spotted massive freighters on the horizon. Louise and Wayne are enthusiastic birders and chattered about the birds near the boat as much as the birds chattered about them. A couple of times we watched a movie during an extended Happy Hour and almost before we knew it two weeks had slipped by and we had Flores in sight, the trip from Block Island was a shade over 2,000 nautical miles and took fifteen days.

With masterly timing Wayne’s wife, Paula, was actually visiting Flores when we arrived and caught up with us again when we pulled into the huge marina at Horta after an overnight sail. Wayne’s place was taken by Teresa, a veteran crew who was making her fifth trip aboard the boat, although she only signed up as far as Terceira. We had our first supper together at a rather unique restaurant which serves your meat or fish order raw. After contemplating it with some alarm I was relieved when the waitress brought each diner a nearly red-hot brick in a special holder with condiments arranged on it so you could grill the meal to your own idea of perfection. Next day we took care of many routine matters such as laundry, getting the jib repaired and updating Fiona‘s sign on the famous pictorial seawall. One evening Louise and I attended a traveling circus featuring a couple of moth-eaten lions, two incomprehensible clowns and a shapely young lady swinging from a trapeze. Great fun; reminiscent of an era that seems to have passed in the States. Our next stop was the island of St Jorge. Since we were there two years ago they have built a marina, not a very large one and with no facilities, those are due next year. But with the marina came a charge and, worse, bureaucracy, which was absent on the previous visit. The highlight was accidentally catching a display of peasant dancers in the front of the church on the main plaza as we wandered back to the boat after dinner. About 16 men and women in traditional costumes, some bare-footed, performed an intricate square dance to a four piece string band. They were very good.

The next day an eight hour sail took us Grasciosa, were even there they were building a new marina, but it wasn’t finished. Nevertheless the bureaucracy was in place and I had to sign in at the police station. The next day we took a cab to the famous ‘Sulfur Cavern’; a sloping volcanic crater you descend into via an impressive stone tower with spiral steps. Bubbling springs and a warm smell of sulfur await at the bottom. We walked back into the village and took a taxi to the main town of Santa Cruz for a late lunch. We found a quaint museum with early apparatus for crushing grapes. The taxi driver on the way back had lived many years in Boston; New England has been a destination for Azorean immigrants for centuries. Our sail to Terceira the next day was a lovely reach. We tied up at the familiar marina at Angra. The next day I left bright and early for a bus ride to Praia to meet the incoming crew at the airport. Alicia and Bill arrived on schedule and we taxied back to Angra, Jim and Teresa moved to a hotel for a couple of days before their departure for home. The next day, Louise organized a taxi tour of the island, the highlights were the lava tube called Christmas cave–an immense cavern, certainly the biggest I have ever been in, and the unique swimming beach at Biscoitos. The ‘beach’ consists of a large plain of huge jumbled pieces of lava at the water’s edge, areas between the boulders have been leveled off with concrete to provide numerous smooth sunbathing platforms. We sailed the boat to Praia on the east coast, our final stop in the Azores before leaving for Greenland. Praia is by no means as attractive as Angra but there are well-stocked supermarkets and we got all our supplies for the next leg. I discovered to my dismay that the video recorder had been malfunctioning for the entire trip, but thanks to the presence of the large American air base near Praia I was able to replace it with a unit that used the US format rather than the European system, which will certainly make editing easier in the fall. Louise left on a direct flight to Boston but our departure was delayed by the arrival of another lady – Hurricane Bertha.

Bertha had been hovering near Bermuda for several days, but the track forecasts intersected exactly with our rhumb line course to the Davis Strait. Although Bertha was eventually downgraded to a tropical storm, she still packed winds of 50 knots and I wasn’t keen to risk an encounter with a crew that had not yet got used to the boat. We waited three days before I could be certain that we would not make the acquaintance of Bertha. A high pressure zone lay to the north of Terceira, we powered for about a day on our way to the Davis Strait. After that we got light winds with sunny skies. Alicia and Bill learned how to take a noon sight with the sextant. Eventually the weather deterorated and we furled the jib in winds of 25 kts gusting to 30 kts. The next day, Alicia came down with terrible abdominal pains and other symptoms. It was clearly not just seasickness. We exchanged e-mails with her physician who provided some sound advice but obviously we had to get her medical attention and I altered course for St John’s, Newfoundland, which lay just under a thousand miles to the west. I was then alerted by an e-mail from Charles (the same buddy we met at Block Island) that another tropical storm, Cristobal, was heading in our general direction. What was happening to the weather this year?! Fortunately Cristobal just seemed to evaporate after a few days but we ran into a huge stationary high pressure cell that was located south of Newfoundland, this gave us several days of beating to weather, something no gentleman should ever do. The seas were moderately rough and Fiona slogged to windward, often under staysail and main, for several days. We typically sailed 120 nm in 24 hours to make good only 60 m towards the destination. It was difficult for all of us, but especially Alicia, who took to her bunk nursing a hot compress to alleviate her pain. Thirteen days after leaving Terceira we pulled into St John’s, a port I was very familiar with. It lies only 1,200 nautical miles from Terceira but we sailed 1,631 nm. Alicia left right away to arrange transportation home, although fortunately she was feeling somewhat better. Later she sent me an e-mail to say she needed a minor surgical procedure. I contacted some old friends to find replacement crew.

Bill and I greatly enjoyed St John’s, which was in the middle of a music festival. Crowds thronged the downtown streets, so great was the influx of tourists that I was unable to rent a car, which I really needed to get some parts, fill the propane tank, etc. A part I had to find was a new fuel filter, the old one had developed a crack which allowed air to get into the fuel supply; bad news for a diesel engine. I took a bus to a possible source, but they didn’t have one, however when I explained I was on a sailboat and car-less, the salesman put me in a company pick-up and drove all over the industrial parks on the outskirts of St Johns until we found one. People are very nice here, which is one reason I like higher latitude cruising. There a couple of new museums since I was last in the town; The Rooms, which sounds like a run-down boarding house, but is, in fact, a very imaginative ethnic museum and art gallery. The Geo Centre is located on the road up to Signal Hill. The weather since we arrived was damp and cold, on the morning of the annual regatta the radio announced that it had been postponed for a day due to high winds, not to mention the driving rain, which would have cramped business at the numerous concession stands. At the same time, they mentioned the temperature was 13º C (about 58ºF), which combined with the humidity, lead to a dreary day. Eventually the Regatta was held after a two-day weather delay, the first time it had been delayed that much in its 190 year history. I wandered off to Quidi Vidi Lake to view the festivities. Scores of stands offered food and drink, cotton candy, ice cream and games. A brass band tootled away and on the lake the racing skiffs flashed towards the finish-line to the encouraging shouts of their supporters. The whole of St John’s was there; all the downtown shops closed for the day; not many cities will close for a day at the whim of a race committee. During our first week we had no luck finding a new crew and Bill and I decided we would leave for a shorter cruise to Labrador. Yet the local newspaper ran an article about the boat and in no time I was inundated by potential crew.

Alicia was replaced by Bianca, a young American who had sailed to Newfoundland as crew on a charter yacht and then fell out with the skipper. Bill also took the chance to step down without leaving me in a hole. He had been partially disabled by an auto accident several years earlier, and found working on the foredeck in a seaway quite difficult. His berth was taken by Ray, a native Newfoundlander, who is a professional seaman with a sailboat of his own. Just before we left, a charming young lady appeared with a TV camera for an interview. Apparently this was broadcast across Newfoundland, when we popped into a bar in St Anthony I was recognized as that notorious sailor.

Our trip to St Anthony, on the northern tip of the Newfoundland Peninsula, went well. After powering to clear the coast of Avalon we pick up a great beam wind and reached most of the way, in rain and fog, however. We tied up with the fishing boats, arranged to top off the tanks before sallying forth into the Davis Strait and set about arranging a trip to the Norse site at L’Anse aux Meadows. A very obliging fellow, Charley, offered to lend us his pick-up the next morning for the 30 mile ride. Such is the informality in these northern settlements we never even discovered his last name. The site was much the same as my visit in ’94: actors dressed in period clothes sitting in the replica Norse sod huts describing the tough life led by these settlers. The site interested me as a sailor; there was no lee for west to north winds. I assume they dragged their ships up the sloping shore. We drove back to St Anthony and left in mid-afternoon.

The trip to Godthaab, or Nuuk as it is also called, in Greenland was very routine. The small town is the capital and lies at 64º N. We did not see a wind over 25 kts and frequently had to resort to powering. We were often shrouded by thick fog and glimpses of the sun were rare. The sea water temperature stayed in the low fifties (Fahrenheit), and we never saw any ice. This was completely at variance with my preconceived notions of the passage; I thought we might well have to hove-to at night to avoid icebergs, as we did in previous trips to the Antarctic. Instead we ploughed on, 24/7, keeping a close eye on the radar. The leg from St Anthony took 7 days. We tied up next to a raft of six boats in the crowded inner harbor. But we had to move several times as inside boats came and went. The town center is a 20 minute walk from the dock, up the hill and left at the traffic circle. There are numerous restaurants and bars. The bars often feature Danish pool, which is played with three balls and five skittles in the center of the table. The rules are complicated but Bianca and I shot a few racks; quite a fun game. The place is quite civilized with a good hotel, banks and a couple of supermarkets. At the harbor the seaman’s hostel provided showers, laundry and a pleasant cafeteria. We refueled at the fuel dock on a spit east of the approach lead-in light. Diesel was inexpensive by modern standards; $3.33/gal. But most things in Greenland are expensive, due, no doubt, to its remoteness. The National Museum and Tourist Gift shop on the site of old Godthaab have interesting Inuit artifacts, especially the mummified burials, and were well worth a visit.

We sailed up the Godthaabsfjord hoping to find Old Norse sites, we had a little map bought at The Greenland National Museum to help us. Our first stop was the island of Qornoq, we discovered a small community of weekend cottages but no ruins. A few people we talked to professed ignorance, they were Inuits; perhaps the old hostilities persist to this day. The next day we set off for Anavik, according to the guide there were a few standing walls. The fjord became choked with growlers, bergey bits and even a couple of icebergs coming from the glacier at the head of the fjord. The wind picked to nearly 30 knots, on the nose, and as we approached the coastal area of the site it became clear that there was no lee for a wind of that strength and anchoring would be impossible. I reluctantly turned around and we whisked back to Qornoq at over 7 knots. Dodging the ice became a problem as the sun sank and glare blinded us. But we dropped the hook at the old spot and enjoyed a fine supper with celebratory Champagne, followed by a movie. Such was our sybaritic life in the frozen wastes.

We left for Sisimiut, formerly Holsteinborg, the next morning. The anchor was badly fouled by seaweed that looked liked Maidenshair, a weed that used to be common on Great South Bay. Ray and Bianca finally got the ground tackle clear and we scooted down the fjord back to Nuuk. We quickly refueled as it looked like we had a window devoid of the persistent northerly winds. But the wind was light, on the nose, and died completely after the first night. It took a day and a half to raise Sisimiut. Just about 20 miles before we got there we crossed the Arctic Circle at 51º02’W. The small harbor was crowded with fishing boats. We refueled and found a vacant piece of dock wall to tie to, but later other boats rafted to us. The town is small; about 5,000 population, it is Greenland’s second largest settlement. A resident told us we were only the second yacht he ever remembered visiting the place. Most seem live by fishing or hunting, I saw some Inuits unloading a skiff loaded with skins and pieces of carcass. There is a small museum and some restored old buildings, the medieval Viking settlemendid not extend this far north. Dog sleds and huskies are used north of Sisimiut in winter; I was able to photograph a few huskies waiting for the return of the snow. After a couple of days we had a shower and a pleasant meal at the Seaman’s Hostel on our last evening, disentangled ourselves from the fishing boats rafted to us and set off for Labrador in the early morning.

The trip south down the Davis Strait to Nain in Labrador took six days. We experienced a mix of calms, head winds and, occasionally, nice beam reaches. One morning, the wind piped up and a block strap on the staysail outhaul broke. Ray and I struggled on the foredeck to shackle a replacement. Then we furled the jib and eventually reefed the mains’l as the wind increased to thirty knots. On two nights the clouds cleared and we witnessed the ever-changing kaleidoscope of the Northern Lights. I had thought we might finally see some icebergs drifting south with Labrador Current but we saw nary a one. On the whole it was an uneventful leg until we raised the coast near Hen and Chickens Reef. We arrived in the early morning on a SSW course. The wind was forecast to be 20 to 25 knots from the west. From the reef the course to Nain was generally west along a twisting passage strewn with rocks and small islands. It was dead to windward, we tried motor sailing with the engine assisting the sail but the angle of heel caused the engine to overheat. The wind increased to 30 knots, our speed dropped to virtually zero. It was about thirty more miles to Nain. I looked at the rocks and islets that already encumbered our route and decided we weren’t going to make Nain this year. We spun the boat around and headed for the open sea with strong wind on our back. The wind increased to 40 knots, the spume flew off the rising waves and Fiona became very difficult to steer. We had to reef the mainsail. Somehow we managed to do this in the shrieking wind and got the boat settled into a broad reach to the southeast – we were going to Battle Harbor, 350 miles down the coast on the Belle Island Strait.

Actually we headed for Mary’s Harbour, which is about eight miles on the coast from the island of Battle Harbour. Here we tied up to the semi-deserted government wharf late in the afternoon and walked into the village for a meal. Ray was horrified to find that in the depths of Labrador he was unable to get fish for dinner. I asked a fisherman on the dock what they went for these days, he said they caught shrimp, but that wasn’t really ‘fishing’. The officer at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police station on the road into town was happy to stamp our passports to show we had officially arrived in Canada again. At lunchtime we left for Battle Harbour, just as we approached the rather tricky inlet on which it is located our chart blew out of the cockpit! We got it back in a soggy state, but good enough to read. Battle Harbour was an important trading center for salt cod for centuries, about fourteen years ago a bunch of enthusiasts began restoration of the old buildings. I remember visiting during the ’94 cruise, I was skeptical that anyone would come to see them as Battle Harbour is a small island with no runway. But I was wrong; there is a small guest house and a ferry service from Mary’s Harbour. Even small cruise ships stop by. We had a pleasant supper with the guests, afterwards the manager, Mike, show some slides and videos of a pod of Orcas he had spotted nearby the day before. They were incredible; at least eight animals together, frolicking and coming right alongside his skiff. He actually touched their shiny skins several times. The next day the weather forecasted for our trip down the Newfoundland coast looked bad but we had a one day window to work to the south. We left early and despite directions from Mike I managed to ‘touch bottom’, that is, hit a rock, on the tickle south of the settlement. ‘Tickle’ is a Newfie word for a passage so narrow it tickles the side of the boat.

For a few hours we had good sailing but the wind picked as we headed for the coast of Newfoundland. In order to get in before nightfall I chose a small bay about five miles north of St Anthony called St Lunaire. Our offshore chart was useless for detailed navigation in the bay but we slowly made our way inside, avoiding rocks and small islets. We got the anchor down in sight of a small village just before sunset. Although the water was only 12 feet deep we paid out 120 feet of chain as we were expecting a blow. It came! About 6 am the next morning I was awakened by the boat bumping on some rocks on the shore in a wind of 25 knots. Ray and Bianca struggled to get to anchor as I maneuvered with engine to find water deep enough to keep the boat floating. A couple of fishermen stopped by in the melee and offered to guide us to better shelter once the anchor was up. We moved a couple of miles following their skiff in driving rain and a headwind gusting up to 30 knots. When we came to re-anchor we discovered why we had dragged; entangled with our own anchor was a large, rusty grapnel we had picked up. I couldn’t believe we would drag with a 10:1 scope under normal circumstances. The west wind that followed the gale whisked us to St John’s in less than two days of glorious sailing.

We stayed four days in St John’s to change crew and wait out hurricane Ike, which produced a strong wind from the south as it passed over Labrador. Elizabeth and Bryan replaced Bianca and Ray. We stopped at Ferryland on the way south. It is the site of an early English settlement in the 17th century called Avalon. Extensive excavations have revealed many foundations, the cobbled main street and the seawall. At the museum they have over a million artifacts dug up so far, with over 60% of the site still to be explored. Bryan contacted his uncle and aunt who lived near by, they gave us a huge box of snow crab legs that we ate on the dock after all the visitors had left. We also had 17th century bread to eat that the lady in the reproduction colonial kitchen had given us. All washed down with Mount Gay rum, a very colonial era supper.

Our next port was Louisburg on Cape Breton Island. The main attraction is the reconstructed French fortress. In the early 18th century it was the main French base on the Atlantic seaboard, it was a thorn in the side of the British. It was captured, returned to the French under treaty and captured again in 1758. This time it was demolished. In the 1960s the coal mining industry in Cape Breton collapsed and the government came up with the imaginative idea of retraining the miners and using them to rebuild a section of the old town and fort. Copies of old plans were forthcoming from Paris and archeologists dug up numerous artifacts that were used as patterns. Now you can spend a very interesting day there, actors dressed in period clothes pretend it is 1744, at the height of French power, and serve contemporary meals, fire muskets and cannons and play old music. All great fun. In the evening I attended a musical at the local playhouse, young musicians and singers performed Nova Scotia ballads, mostly about the demise of the way of the life they loved, that is, the end of the cod fisheries.

From Louisburg we sailed directly to Lunenburg in Nova Scotia, arriving well after dark, so I decided to anchor in Puffeycup Bay and wait for daylight before finding a place to tie-up. When that was settled I heard from a Canadian sailor on as nearby yacht that a tropical storm was expected to ht Nova Scotia by the weekend. It was Thursday; a quick check of the marine weather forecast showed that we had a one-day window to get to Maine, otherwise we would probably be trapped in Lunenburg until it blew over. I was reluctant to leave after such a short time; I first sailed there with Iona in 1967 and I have quite a fondness for the old place. Elizabeth and Bryan enjoyed an early supper of lobster on the dock and we left before sunset. We had to power to Cape Sable, but then picked up a good breeze and sailed through the night across the Gulf of Maine. We arrived at the entrance to Frenchman’s Bay with rising winds in thick fog. Fortunately the old radar was working well and we groped our way into Bar Harbor where we picked up a mooring. For the first time on this cruise we pumped up the inflatable (we had used the rigid dinghy up to that point) and chugged over to the dockmaster’s office where we checked in with customs; we were back in the USA. When we returned to the dock after quite a fancy supper we were drenched with rain preceding the arrival of Tropical Storm ‘Kyle’ the next day. Despite frightening forecasts from the Coast Guard of gusts to 65 kts and 30 ft seas nothing materialized and we spent a quiet night. The storm had veered towards Nova Scotia; I think we got out just in time.

Bryan returned to Canada to join his father for an annual moose hunt. Elizabeth and I sailed over to Stonington and anchored for the night. In the morning we found we were gently bumping on the bottom, so we left quite early and anchored at Butter Island. The owners, the old line Cabot family, encourage visitors to use the shoreline and have put a nice granite bench on top of a hill with a wonderful view of Penobscot Bay. From Butter we chugged over to Belfast where we spent two nights tied up at the city dock. We ran into a cruising English couple, Robin and Jackie, and enjoined a Happy Hour on board with them and the two dockmasters, Kathy and Malcolm. The wind was light when we left Belfast and I made the mistake of towing the dinghy. Later in the morning the wind picked up to 25 kts and inevitably the dinghy capsized. We were making little progress despite setting the mainsail. Camden was abeam, so we altered course and anchored in the bay to the east of the inner harbor. Here we righted the dinghy, drained and dried the outboard motor and replaced a section of the towing bridle which had broken. It was fortunate indeed that we had diverted into Camden; if the other half of the bridle had broken we would have lost the dinghy, and trying to recover a capsized dinghy with a broken towline would have been very difficult in the seas that were running by then. After a couple of hours we set off again for Rockland, this time with the dinghy on deck. Unfortunately this delay meant we arrived in Rockland quite late; we just had a enough time for supper ashore before retiring to the boat. We left early for the leg to Port Clyde. I have always relished the old-fashioned grocery store there which never seems to change much. After lunch we walked over to Marshall Point light house. The next day Elizabeth took the ferry for a day on Monhegan Island. When she returned we just had enough time to power to an anchorage five miles away before darkness made the navigation too dangerous in the rocky waters of Muscongus Bay. Our next mooring was at Boothbay, from there we sailed over to Orr’s Island to visit a friend I first met in the Azores when I was on the circumnavigation via the Capes. We had a very pleasant dinner with several of mine host’s friends, only to be brought back to reality by watching the debate between Obama and McCain on TV–we had been isolated from the political hoopla in the US on the boat. After a lunch-time stop at Jewel Island we picked up a mooring at Portland. Elizabeth had trained at a maritime school there many years before, so she had lots of friends to contact. I browsed the many used book stores and spent a morning at the wonderful art museum; the special exhibit was French and American Impressionists, which is a period I love. Chuck joined the boat for the last leg to New York.

We left early for the leg to Isle of Shoals, which lies a few miles east of Portsmouth, NH. The wind deserted us and we powered all the way, but we arrived in time for Elizabeth and Chuck to explore the island, which now houses a religious retreat belonging to the Unitarian Church. The next day we again powered to Rockport, MA, where Elizabeth had friends and she decided to disembark there. Fortunately the wind came back the next day and we had a great sail to Provincetown, on the way we saw quite a few whales, some were breaching. Next we transited the Cape Cod Canal and tied up at Marion, at the head of Sippican Bay. Chuck’s son Mark met us on the dock bringing with him a huge supper. Our next stop was Newport, RI, follows by a good sail to Block Island. Our intention had been to sail the following night down the Long Island coast but when we awoke there was a strong wind from the north and we left immediately. Unfortunately the wind conked out by the afternoon, we powered and entered Fire Island Inlet about 10:30 pm. We negotiated the tricky shallows east of the Robert Moses Bridge and anchored for the night. By morning the wind was blowing strongly from the northeast as we chugged up Great South Bay. Bob aboard Fireplace was waiting to greet us off Blue Point and offer a tow up the river if needed. But last year’s dredging gave us a foot clearance even though we were a little before high tide. We arrived at Weeks Yachtyard at noon, several old crew and friends were waiting.

A few thoughts on the cruise: although only four months long I had 11 different crew, only Louise and Teresa were repeaters. I was very surprised by Greenland; along the coast as far north as we sailed, about 67º N, it was quite green, so Eric the Red got a bum rap when he was accused of ‘spin’ by naming the country ‘Green’. I thought we might meet considerable floating ice in the Davis Strait. We saw none, even the west side in the Labrador Current was clear. I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of Thai nationals working in Nuuk, the women were very pretty. There were considerably fewer sailboats cruising Maine and New England than on previous cruises I have made at the same time of year. We logged 8,058 nautical miles and added 468 hours to the engine time. Although we had to dodge several hurricanes we did not encounter any severe weather.

Until the next time…
Fair Winds, Eric

The crew assemble for the trip to the Azores: Louise, Wayne, Eric, Jim