Yeva, Baffin Bound

 

After a full month along the southwest coast of Greenland, Ella Hibbert and the Yeva are finally at sea crossing the Davis Strait and heading toward Baffin Island, Canada The distance from Sisimiut, Greenland, Yeva's last post, to Cape Dyer, Baffin Island's easternmost point, is approximately 210 miles.  Hazards in the Davis Strait include sea ice, fishing boats and other ocean-going vessels, cold weather, storms, the Kraken, and of course, the edge of the world. 

Depending of factors ranging from wind to seas to rest intervals, it should take the Yeva about 40 hours to cross the Strait. That would put her in Canada sometime early Wednesday morning. 

Hibbert is attempting the first solo circumnavigation of the Arctic Ocean in one season, a feat that shouldn't be possible if not for climate change and melting sea ice. She left Lerwick Harbor in Scotland's Shetland Islands on June 5, and arrived at her starting point at the Arctic Circle on June 10. However, big waves in the Norwegian Sea inundated the cabin, causing some salt-water corrosion problems that eventually killed her AIS tracking device and cabin heater. But from the starting point, she passed over the north side of Iceland, and then dipped down below the Arctic Circle to pass the southern tip of Greenland. She made several stops along the west coast of Greenland, working her way north and back up to the Arctic Circle, while repairing a cascading series of equipment problems, including replacing the AIS and the heater. She left Nuuk, the capital and logistical hub of Greenland, on July 21 and arrived at Sisimiut on the 26th, where she scrubbed the Yeva's hull of algae, refueled, and got a final rest before pushing off this morning.

Best wishes and safe passage to Hibbert and the Yeva.