Things are getting a little dicey up in the Amundsen Gulf between the Canadian mainland and Victoria and Banks Islands. The marine forecast indicates southeast winds increasing to 20 knots by tomorrow afternoon, with patches of fog forming in the morning and hopefully dissipating by noon. There is also an ice warning for the region, with old ice blocking the exit west toward Alaska, which is unusual for this time of year.
Obviously, high winds in ice-packed water under foggy conditions is less than an ideal situation for sailing. Ella Hibbert is currently in the Amundsen Gulf near the delta of the Croker River and heading west, and reports that she's taking the Yeva to some place called Pierce Point (which I can't find on any maps) to ride out the storm. I'm pretty sure it's not the large (and ice-filled) Darnley Bay between the Parry Peninsula and the Melville Hill headlands. If it's where I think it is (where I would head in those conditions) it's a small harbor along the Melville Hills coast just to the left of the arrow in the Canadian Ice Chart up above. She'll drop two anchors there for the first time on this trip to make sure the ship doesn't drift off into the ice field.
Tamara Klink and the Sardinha 2 are about 100 or so miles to the north-northwest of the Yeva. Klink posted about playing a chess game with the ice, trying to anticipate the best route as the ice moves and hopefully a passage opens up. She's currently close to the south coast of Banks Island and should hopefully be able to find a snug harbor somewhere on Banks tomorrow.
Man, these Canadian Ice Charts are difficult to read! It's my first time seeing one, so I may be interpreting it completely wrong, but I believe the purple areas labelled A and B are thick accumulations of "old ice," sea ice which has survived at least one summer’s melt. As explained in the "egg codes" at the bottom of the chart, the A area is about 90% covered by old ice, while the B area is 70% covered. The ice in both area occurs in big to vast floes from ½ to 6 miles across. In other words, unpassable unless you happen to be a reinforced icebreaker vessel.
But if you squint, it looks like there might be a narrow channel to the west of both ships between the old ice of the purple B area and the Parry Peninsula. But to get to that area, they will have to sail through D, E, and F areas with 20 to 50% coverage of first-year ice. Fortunately for the Yeva (unfortunately for the Sardinha 2) the floes of first-year ice are drifting to the north (I think that's what the arrow is indicating), so wider, more frequent channels may be available to the Yeva, while the Sardinha might encounter more congestion.
I may be completely wrong. These charts were not designed for landlubber sports bloggers like me. But I'm pretty sure that if nothing else, one needs to avoid the purple A and B areas, and exercise extreme caution through the yellow and green D, E, and F areas. The good news is that once they get past this bottleneck where the sea ice is up against the mainland, there's a fairly clear channel of open water along the coast all the way west to and across Alaska.
It's anyone's guess where the ice may drift to after the wind blows through this weekend. I wish both Hibbert and Klink all the best.
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