I’ve been trying to hunt down anyone who has done the Alaska to Japan passage up to the Bering Sea, and at this point have only found three (non-commercial) power boats that have made the trip. It is certainly possible that there are more, but I seriously doubt that there are a lot more.
Trip planning has been somewhat difficult in that there really isn’t much good information available. Several people have advised me to read the old trip reports from World War II. Not much has changed, and not much new has been written.
For me, today was a special occasion because I was able to speak with the owner of a boat that has made the passage; Grant Wilson, of Whale Song (http://www.mywhalesong.com/).
Grant is currently doing a circumnavigation on his 95′ steel trawler, and when I spoke with him today, he was on the east coast, while his boat is in Phuket Thailand. Whale Song has gone from the east coast, down around Cape Horn, north to the Bering Sea, and now to Phuket. Amazing.
My goal for the conversation was to ask about getting our boat into Siberia. Unfortunately, Grant bypassed Siberia after getting early indications that the fees for a cruising permit might be horrendous. Whale Song ran directly from the Aleutians to Hokkaido (Japan), which is about a 2,000 mile passage. We’re hoping to be able to break up this long passage, because of the potential for typhoons. Grant described the run as “rough”, but not that bad.
I’m hoping to visit the Russian consulate sometime next week to start to see what is involved in getting into Siberia.
He also described their cruising since Japan, and that he thought the cruising in Japan, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia was some of the best in the world. By the time we were off the phone, he had sold me on the trip.
Trip planning has been somewhat difficult in that there really isn’t much good information available. Several people have advised me to read the old trip reports from World War II. Not much has changed, and not much new has been written.
For me, today was a special occasion because I was able to speak with the owner of a boat that has made the passage; Grant Wilson, of Whale Song (http://www.mywhalesong.com/).
Grant is currently doing a circumnavigation on his 95′ steel trawler, and when I spoke with him today, he was on the east coast, while his boat is in Phuket Thailand. Whale Song has gone from the east coast, down around Cape Horn, north to the Bering Sea, and now to Phuket. Amazing.
My goal for the conversation was to ask about getting our boat into Siberia. Unfortunately, Grant bypassed Siberia after getting early indications that the fees for a cruising permit might be horrendous. Whale Song ran directly from the Aleutians to Hokkaido (Japan), which is about a 2,000 mile passage. We’re hoping to be able to break up this long passage, because of the potential for typhoons. Grant described the run as “rough”, but not that bad.
I’m hoping to visit the Russian consulate sometime next week to start to see what is involved in getting into Siberia.
He also described their cruising since Japan, and that he thought the cruising in Japan, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia was some of the best in the world. By the time we were off the phone, he had sold me on the trip.