Greetings everyone!
We are now on our third day since leaving Nome.
I do have some updates from yesterday, but before I give those, I have some pictures from our time in Nome. These pre-date Roberta’s and my arrival to the boat. While Roberta and I returned to our home near Seattle, the crew spent almost a month in Nome waiting patiently for the ice in the Northwest Passage to melt enough that we could continue our journey.
Nome is a great town filled with wonderful people, but I do think that a month in Nome was probably plenty for the crew. They seemed happy to see Roberta and I return and for us to get underway.
Rafting boats is a standard practice in the Nome Harbor. Marinas, as we think of them are rare in this part of the world.
This picture needs a bit of explaining. While we were tied up in the port of Nome, we almost had a disaster.
Our crew saved North Star!
There was a DIY gold dredging boat tied up nearby to North Star. It was tied to shore at one end and had driven pilings into the harbor bottom at the aft end. Due to a combination of wind and rain, the water rose in the harbor, and as it did, the pilings came out of the bottom allowing the ass-end of the workboat to drift towards North Star.
Our crew realized what was happening and jumped on the radio, but the workboat was unmanned. Capt. Garrett was able to quickly jump in our tender and push the workboat away, saving the day. Thank you Garrett!!!
Called the “Last Train to Nowhere”, this relic from the past tells a story of gold mining industry. After the gold boom dried up, this project was abandoned.
Pilgrim Hot Springs is another major attraction nearby Nome. This Catholic Mission was transformed into an orphanage and school for surviving children of the devastating Spanish Flu of 1918. The property is a true oasis in the tundra, with multiple hot springs for bathing and a thriving farm.
Nome has three main roads connecting surrounding villages. This is the road out to Pilgrim Hot Springs.
Musk Ox(s) or is it Musk Oxes? The crew even saw them walking through town!
We left Nome with 8,000 gallons of fuel, enough to take us over 5,000 miles. That said, we have 4,600 miles to go and have to allow for periods of time when we might be locked in the ice, unable to move, for days (or, weeks?) at a time. We have a couple of places along the way where we can get fuel, but have been unable to get official confirmation that the fuel we need will be there when we arrive. Our plan is to take on several thousand gallons of fuel in Cambridge Bay (about 1,500 miles into our journey). We hope fuel will be available when we get there! Until we have plenty of fuel onboard I will be tense. It never would occur to me that 5,000 miles of range could be considered as “marginal” but .. it never would have occurred to me that I would someday take a boat through the Northwest Passage. This does seem unreal!
I remember Sarah Palin (former Governor of Alaska) taking some heat for saying that you could see Russia from Alaska. I can now vouch for her comment! We threaded the needle through the Diomede Islands. They are centrally located between Alaska and Siberia, spaced only 2.4 miles apart. We passed through them closer to the US side, but had their not been fog we easily could have seen Russia out our port window
Approaching Little Diomede Island
Little Diomede has only 83 residents, and is part of the United States, but to our left (port) side as we passed between the islands was Big Diomede, a Russian Military Base. We considered stopping to visit Little Diomede, but doubted we would be welcome. In any event, as I thought about recent tensions with Russia I decided the last place I wanted to be was adjacent to a military base. I’m sure it would have been fine, but being a paranoid person I made the wise decision to say, “Don’t slow down. Let’s get out of here.” The fog was thick enough I couldn’t see Big Diomede, but I refused to look out the port window anyhow.
As we passed Little Diomede we were surrounded by tens of thousands of little sea birds called auks. They made a LOT of noise! They come to the Diomede Islands to nest and feed in the rich Bering Strait waters.
Clive Shute – ICE PILOT
I asked Clive to give a brief overview of what the next few days look like.
——
Hello Everyone, I am the Ice Pilot on North Star, my job is to work with the Captain
and all on board and give advice and information on managing the Ice situation and
also providing local knowledge, things like places to anchor and on the environment
generally.
This Ice year is one of the worst years since I started keeping records in 2004 for the
North Coast of Alaska as the Ice melt is 3-4 weeks later than usual, this is really
important as it gives us less time to spend in the rest of the NW passage, which for
me is one of the Wonders of the World. As a result of this we left Nome 10 days
later than we planned.
The current situation is both good and not so good. The good news is the ice melt
has been going well in the last week and much of the North Coast has a lower
concentration of Ice than a week ago. The not so good news is that the entire Ice
pack is now moving south at a speed of 3 miles a day, as in some places the Ice
pack is less than 3 miles from shore we expect conditions may worsen in the next
few days. We will have to navigate through a narrow strip of water between the
Ice pack and land.
The best news for me is I am on a great vessel, North Star has a great team on
board and everyone is really competent and experienced, this is a happy
experienced team on a great ship, it makes life so much better for me!
AND LASTLY
Check out our live feed!
Tomorrow (August 17) should be our first day in the ice. We’re excited, nervous, and just about every other emotion you can think of. It’s going to be a BIG day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgHnnB_51nE
If you want to watch the live stream via YouTube on your television, I’m actually not sure how it works. Visit our YouTube channel (search youtube for MV North Star) and look through the videos it shows. You should see one that says “LIVE”.
Also .. we now have a live map which always has our up to date position.
And, if you just want to say “hi” or have a comment or question, we always love hearing from you – Write to me at: ken@mvnorthstar.com
That’s it for this edition of the blog.
Ken and Roberta Williams, with Pixie and Keeley
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