Yeva, Progressing

 

The Yeva has left Bylot Island and is now sailing west through Lancaster Sound.

In a news-filled v-log update, Ella Hibbert has revealed the route she plans to take through the maze of islands and channels that make up the Northwest Passage. She will continue west through Lancaster Sound around Baffin Island's Brodeur Peninsula, turn south through the Gulf of Boothia, and then ride the tides through Bellot Strait, a narrow passage that separates the Canadian mainland to the south from Somerset Island to the north. From there, she will most likely pass south below Victoria Island and into the Beaufort Sea and the North Slope of Alaska. If so, she may currently be at one of the most northerly latitudes of her trip, 74°15' N.

There's more. In Tay Bay on Bylot Island, she saw her first two polar bears. I would be terrified, but Hibbert responded with awe and appreciation, although to be sure she allowed them her preferred anchorage near the beach and dropped anchor elsewhere in the bay. In any event, despite the bears, she had to spend 24 hours in Tay Bay due to wind, rain and snow blowing down Lancaster Sound before more favorable conditions allowed her to finally leave. 

More still. She's made a friend up there. In addition to polar bear sightings, while in Tay, Ella met Tamara on the Sardinia 2, who is also attempting a solo trip of her own through the Northwest Passage. Tamara apparently spent last winter on board her ship in Greenland; unlike the Yeva, the Sardinia 2 is not attempting a single-season circumnavigation of the entire Arctic Ocean. This year, the Sardinia 2 was sailing the Passage tandem with a French crew on another boat, but unfortunately the latter is stuck in Pond Inlet with engine trouble. 

It's pretty remarkable that to date, only 12 people have made solo voyages through the Northwest Passage, the same number (as Hibbert points out) that have walked on the moon, and this year, two separate 28-year-old women are both attempting the feat. That, and they ran into each other in the same bay in the vast Canadian wilderness. Ella and Tamara will sail tandem in their separate vessels, still solo sailing but with some company within radio chat range and assistance, if needed, in case of emergency, before going their separate ways in the Beaufort Sea.   

Today is Day 60 of the Yeva's voyage. 3,021 nautical miles of 8,850 completed.