Under sail again

September 8, 2019 Jannette Sluik

As Tuk was only a short stop, we are looking forward to being underway again, with one last possible stop on Hershel Island. And we are under sail!

We left under sail from our anchorage and set the topsails and big jib, a very light breeze and no waves at all, we are doing 4,5 knots through the calm night. Even hitting the 6 knots at times. What a treat. There are some very thin low hanging clouds which prevent the Northern light from showing their full glory, but we can see them dance behind the moist layer.

Today was an extremely warm day, 18 degrees in Tuk. Right now, with land still close by we are measuring 11,4 degrees on deck, at 45 minutes past midnight! This is sort of a record. One of our expedition crew is keeping track of all the statistics and has been measuring twice and sometimes four times per day, around midnight and around noon. The temperature has not been below 0 yet, only when the wind chill is calculated did we get to -4,4 and close to that some of the nights and days. But we are noticing that since October has come, the general temperature is dropping. Especially with the sun being gone for over 6 hours during the night.

We will not get into the whole global warming discussion, but to be frank, the open water, the expected temperature of 21 degrees for tomorrow and the growing amount of shipping getting through the passage do mean something. Days and nights like these do make you think.

One of our other expedition members is collecting plastic information on all the places we go. This afternoon as part of the crew went ashore to explore the Pingo’s (in inuit this means ‘little hill’) he said he recognized that there was a lot of drift wood, but this (at first glance) seemed to be on of the first stops, where he did not see any plastic! The beach was littered with drift wood, big and small, grey, weathered and old, no plastic. But alas, as they climbed over the first bit of permafrost close to shore, there it was. Blown of the banks of the beach, onto land, plastic as far as the eye could see. A small disappointment, but when you think about it, it is nearly logical. Tuktuyoktuk is at the river bank of Mackenzy river. All things floating, drift down river, that goes for trees that have fallen, but it also goes for plastic. One might have thrown in their waste plastic bottle hundreds of miles up river.. in the end in comes into the delta of the river or even gets swept out to the Beaufort Sea.