68’54.2N 105’36.4N course 115′ speed 6,6kn
During the day and during the night there has hardly been a watch that did not either gybe, reef or unreef a sail. One watch though, was very tranquil and easy going and the watch was handed over with, we hope you have a nice laid back watch as well.. and within an hour we were reefing down the main sail and mizzen as showers came in with over 20 knots.
Steering has been easy, although the compass is not the biggest of helps. We are heading down wind and right now there are hardly any waves. This morning this was a different story. The 8 to 12 watch gybed as they ran into Victory Island and just after gybing a steep waves was throwing us around. After a no wave night, we were rocking so badly that the dishes jumped out of the sink and the books danced of the shelves! It lasted for 2 or 3 hours, until we ran out of charted area to sail in and we gybed back again. And all went quiet! What a relieve as this was just before lunch!
Charts are good here, although not all areas are charted, which is sometimes inconvenient for a sailing vessel. We have to stick to a ‘fair way’ of charted water, as there are rocky bits around that have been charted and they rise up from 50 meter depths to 4 meter depths.. And most likely there are more of those rocks in the less charted areas… they are just not on the map.. So while it looks like we could sail the same course for another 20 miles, we have to gybe as the officially charted waters end in 1 mile..
We are just passing Cambridge bay. We have many places we still want to explore and we leave Cambridge bay for what it is. We are underway to Gjoa haven as long as we have this beautiful westerly breeze. Any other stops are weather depending. The ice reports still look good, although we still have to wait and see what the stronger north westerly wind will blow up later this week.
All is well on board, Jet
