Almost immediately after Taya and Polar Sun escaped from Pasley Bay, I saw through the binoculars that there was a wall of ice a few miles off to our south. The latest ice chart showed ice extending west from the coast of the Gulf of Boothia and another penis-shaped piece of 7/10th ice extending east from King William (photo 2). You didn’t need to be an ice forecaster to see that the two pieces were about to join. For all we knew, this had already happened. One of the toughest things about doing the NWP is the lag between what you see on the ice charts and what is there when you arrive at said location in real life. The AIS showed a French boat passing to our west. They had just come through James Ross Strait and they reported it was still open and gave me a waypoint to aim for. There was also a Dutch boat heading south about 18 miles ahead of us. By plotting their location via their AIS signal I was able to draw an imaginary line for the location of the ice. By nightfall, we had passed three more sections of ice. I will spare you the details but it was all somewhat trivial compared to what we had experienced in Pasley Bay. It wasn’t until we were well south of Matty Island the next morning though, that I let myself believe we had finally put the crux of the Northwest Passage behind us. A lot has happened since, but for now I’ll just say that Polar Sun is in Cambridge Bay, and @zartman_rigging, @rudy.le and I are investigating whether it might be possible to haul out here for the winter. The crew needs to get home and there is real concern that we lost too much time in Pasley Bay to make it up and over Point Barrow and through the Bering Strait before the fall storm cycles begin. The decision as to whether we should end this year’s voyage here has been one of the toughest I’ve ever made. Earlier this morning we hiked to the other side of the bay to look at some steel cradles that previous voyagers have used to haul out here for the winter. There is no boat yard here in Cambridge. If you want to get your boat out of the water in this part of the world, good luck figuring it out. 📸 1: @renan_ozturk