Every single time I call to check in with my folks, my mother asks me if I’ve decided what I’m going to do once I’m done on Polar Bear. Sometimes she’ll ask several times in one call (it’s true, Mom. You do). And every single time she asks, the answer remains the same: nope.
You’re shocked, I can tell. But while I don’t have any definitive idea as to what’s next, I am slowly whittling away at the options as I await that burst of insight the universe has always tended to grant me at crux moments in my life. I’ve whittled a couple more options away of late:
The original plan for Polar Bear was to head south to Scotland, Ireland, Madeira and the Canary Islands, there to join the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (known as “the ARC”) and head across the ocean to St. Lucia. When that plan went belly up thanks to the boat’s owner and his horse-puckey shenanigans, I began looking into joining other boats doing the ARC. Boogie and Marlies even had a friend who’s captain of another Challenge 72 yacht who was in need of a crewman to go. I also looked into crewing on some private yacht doing a similar event from the United States, the Caribbean 1500. Basically, the plan was to continue getting experience on other people’s boats.
Keep in mind that with the exception of sailing my Hobie Cat off the beach at Plum Island when I was a teenager, I’ve always been a member in good standing of the OPBYC: the Other People’s Boats Yacht Club. Whether racing or doing deliveries, I’ve always gone to see on a boat owned by someone else.
Well not this time. No more boat bumming…at least not at this time. If I’m going to continue sailing in 2011, it’s going to be on a boat of my own. More likely, it seems a return to shore-based life in some form is in the cards for the near future. And it’s possible I’ll combine a return to shore-based life with the purchase of a boat of my own to play on wherever it is I settle in. Of course, you’re all invited to come share in the fun on the boat if and when that happens.
We arrived in Akureyri early yesterday morning amid thick fog and placid waters. We tied up to the same dock we’d been at when we were here back in July and cleaned Polar Bear stem to stern. The harbor staff showed up and connected the water and electricity, the customs man came and went, and we were free to play.
First up was, of course, the pool complex. The hot tubs and steam bath were still soothing, the slide still wacky fun, and the facilities all top-notch. A restoring visit once again and I emerged squeaky clean after two weeks of alternating clothes — one set for on-watch, one set for off-watch — and regular tooth brushing as the means to maintaining sanitary living. And the earlier-described dip/shampoo in the sea at Hekla in Scoresby Sund was about it when it came to active sanitation methods. Manky? Not quite. But certainly not the height of stylish living, perhaps.
But Iceland is a stylish nation, after all, so I had to clean up, right? Home to just 300,000 people, it is, nevertheless, home ground for several high-end clothing companies that focus on stylish, functional outdoor — and outdoor-looking — apparel. One such company is 66 North, perhaps the best-known of Iceland’s outdoor companies. I checked out their two stores here in Akureyri and found them both light years better than the store in Reykjavik. In the capital city, the 66 North store was more of a boutique with an emphasis on fashion and city wear. Here on the north coast, one store was an outlet, with bargains on blemished items and off-sizes, while the other store (in a small mall) was more mainstream…but its selection blew away that of the Reykjavik city. If I were in the market for stylish clothes (and had one of my more more tasteful friends here to counsel me), I could easily have spent a ton of money in there. As it is, I walked out with a pair of too-warm overmitts to replace the old Black Diamond versions I sold in my Easter garage sale in Anchorage, and which will come in very handy on the nighttime watches to come.
I hit up 66 North today, a brief respite from final preparations for our departure tomorrow morning. The boat’s water tanks were filled, its heater fixed, the forward locker rearranged and packed, laundry done, and food stores put away. We’ll head out in the morning bound for the Shetland Islands in what should be a five-day journey or so. The forecast is for every possible wind scenario: dead calm, raging winds courtesty of the remnants of Hurricane Irene; on the nose to dead aft and from both port and starboard sides. It should be an interesting journey, to be sure, and hopefully we’ll get to do a bit more sailing en route to Lerwick than we’ve done pretty much all summer. It’s been an overwhelmingly engine-driven summer…not at all what I signed on for. If you know any wind dances, we could use ’em about now, thanks.
We’re about 120 miles from Akureyri now, and up until last night it had been a brutal passage. By “brutal” I don’t mean difficult: the conditions haven’t been life-threatening or anything like that. It had been a brutal passage due to tedious conditions that resulted in fatigue, tension and just general malaise.
For instance, right now we’re motoring over a smooth but rolly sea. There’s a thick blanket of cold fog surrounding Polar Bear, drenching every last surface — deck, sail, body — with a thin but pervasive bone-chilling layer of wetness that sinks deep inside the cabin and the soul.
And we’ve been motoring since we left Constable Pynt, almost two days ago. It was a bright, sunny, breeze-on-the-nose motor south in Hurry Inlet, but as we neared the broader waters of Scoresby Sund, things got interesting. A fierce wind blew from the east-northeast, steadily in the mid- to high-30-knot range with gusts even higher. In response to that, the seas in Scoresby Sund were heaped up into a choppy maelstrom of steep waves and blowing spray, again, pretty much from the direction we were trying to go. Polar Bear’s already underpowered engine struggled to move us at much over 2 knots. And the pack ice that had been outside the sound had blown in on the wind and waves, turning our path into a slalom course through icebergs, growlers and bergie bits. It was a lousy way to start a passage, ruining the upbeat mood that had permeated the boat upon our departure.
We turned the corner at Kap Brewster, exiting Scoresby Sund and entering the open seas of the Denmark Strait. There we found a large, steady swell out of the southwest formed by the storm that had recently passed so it was all locally generated and, as in Scoresby Sund, short and steep. And southwest was our desired path in order to head south past the pack ice before turning southeast to Iceland. But with the wind out of the south and southeast, we had a choice: motor into the seas and rock like a bucking bronco or motor into the headwinds for a somewhat gentler ride but at really slow speeds.
On top of the in-your-face conditions that made everyone at least a little queasy, the wear and tear of almost two weeks in the cold had begun to take effect. Continually low temperatures had made fatigue a constant, and I, for one, could do nothing when not on watch but sleep. The cocoon of my bunk was so welcoming that whenever I came off watch it wasn’t more than three minutes before I was safely and warmly ensconced in my sleeping bag. With others in a similar state, esprit de corps was waning.
So it was that despite calming seas, I went into last night’s midnight-3am watch dreading another three hours of monotonous engine droning and cold, wet air. And upon exiting the companionway hatch and standing in the cockpit I found myself surrounded by, yes, a droning engine and thick, cold fog. But I looked straight overhead, right up the mast toward the zenith and was rewarded with a clear view of the W of Cassiopeia. To the south a bit, off our starboard beam, the bright stars Vega and Deneb were visible in a clear, night sky. And off to the north, off our port quarter, the Big and Little Dippers (the latter with Polaris, the pole star, at its tail) were also visible. And that’s when the magic happened.
The fog eased slightly and a bolt of green shot across the sky from north to south. From the horizon off our port side to the horizon off our starboard, a grand, waving curtain of green danced before the solar winds as the aurora again appeared at the start of my watch. In short order, other cliffs of shimmering green undulated in rhythmic swells, punctuated by occasional globs and pulses of bright auroral glow.
For a good half-hour we were all treated to a magnificent show of the northern lights, and occasional displays occurred for another two hours, until the glare of morning twilight grew from the dark northern edge of the sea to engulf the entire sky. Any queasiness I’d been feeling? Gone. And the malaise that had plagued the journey from Scoresby Sund was gone, swept away by the energy I generated bouncing from rail to rail to maximize my view of the magic light in the sky. At 3am, in the broadening glow of day, I went off watch feeling refreshed and invigorated, and though I once again headed straight to my bunk to sleep, the pall that had weighed on my eyes and my psyche was lifted. A few more watches to go and we’d be in Iceland, but in the meantime, I’d had my taste of northern magic and was greatly refueled.
The northern lights last night were a lifesaving fire that warmed the inside so much that the outside and the soul were brought back from the edge. I hadn’t gone into frigid water and I wasn’t trying desperately to build a fire that would save my life, but the conditions didn’t seem that far off. Thanks to this fire, the numbness that had been creeping deeper and seemed ever more deadly were banished.