Bureau of Curious Behaviors

 

I have no idea what they're doing up there in the Arctic. I hope everyone is alright.

First, we have Ella Hibbert and the Yeva appearing to be sailing back to Alaska after harboring overnight in Siberia. Today and yesterday, she's been sailing east across the Bering Strait apparently straight toward Nome. Is she having equipment problems and needs something that can't be shipped to her in Russia in a timely manner? Is it a health issue? We don't know because she hasn't posted an update since August 2 before she left Saint Paul Island and all we can do it follow her route.

Update: After posting this, I found a post by some other person saying that when Hibbert was in the port of Providenia in Russia, she needed to replenish her fuel supply but attempts to contact anyone there were unsuccessful. Perhaps she's now headed to Nome to fuel up before taking on the Northeast Passage. 

Then there's Matt Rutherford and the Chimera, still way up north at the 80th parallel in the Kara Sea, but for some reason now turned around and heading west instead of east. He had been fairly consistent with at least daily updates to his media feed, but has been silent the past two days with no explanation as to why he's reversed course.

And who knows what the hell Tamara Klink and the Sardinga 2 are up to in the Chukchi Sea. Searching for a path through sea ice? Reacting to changing wind directions? Lost? Just playing around? Her most recent Instagram update was yesterday but was recorded back when she first left Nome last week.

So, yeah, I'm confused. Everybody seems to be going in the wrong direction. But I'm neither a sailor nor an Arctic explorer, so what do I know?

Update 2: Rutherford just announced this evening that the Northern Sea Route Association within the Russian Government, which controls the Northeast Passage over Siberia, has decided that the ice conditions are too hazardous to permit any recreational vessels to pass through. In other words, access denied, and he has turned back to sail the 5,000 miles to his home in Annapolis, Maryland. Bummer.

That may also be why Ella Hibbert is now a mere dozen or so miles outside of Nome, Alaska. She may have not found the fuel she was looking for in Providenia, but she may also have been told to "turn back."

Update 3: Tamara Klink just posted that she indeed had been looking for a path through the sea ice in the Chukchi Sea, but seeing nothing but ice around here and on the satellite map, she's heading back to the Bering Strait. 

Long story short, for a season that looked like it might have had as many as three solo sailboats passing through the Northeast Passage, it now appears that there won't be any. Bummer.