Tay Bay - 73°29' 34"N 80°43' 47"W

The Voyager crew at Cape Hatt

We sailed across the sparkling Eclipse Bay to an amazing anchorage at Cape Hatt. It is an almost land-locked bay accessed by a narrow channel.  Much of the bay is uncharted so we tiptoed in carefully.  We were tussled by katabatic winds but the water was flat and the anchor set (after a couple of attempts due to weeds) so we had few concerns. The landscape is stunning, like being anchored on a mountain lake in a cirque. It is a popular hunting area for the locals evidenced by a couple of small huts on the shore.

It finally becomes calm and flat when we enter the inlet.  Phew!

When the wind died out, it was very peaceful with only the honking of the snow geese to disturb the silence. We had one aborted attempt to leave as the wind was bang on the nose throwing up short, sharp waves so we retreated back to the calm of the anchorage and waited until the wind dropped.

So unreal it looks painted!

It was again blue and sparkling as we sailed north into Navy Board Inlet.  This is a narrow inlet between Baffin and Bylot Islands.

It was like sailing through a Group of Seven painting.  The scenery at times simply did not look real. For those who do not know of The Group of Seven, they were artists in the 1920s who travelled Canada painting the landscape.

Lawren Harris spent some time in Pond Inlet and has a number of paintings featuring Bylot Island, its mountains and glaciers. He captured their grandeur and colours superbly. A print of one of his paintings was in the Parks Canada office in Pond Inlet and we quickly recognised it as the view out the window!

Tay Bay - note the silty water due to the glacier at the end!

We arrived in Tay Bay once again in the early hours of the morning … but still in broad daylight. Twenty-four hour daylight makes you a little lazy with planning arrival times. It also completely screws up sleep routines and we often have no idea of the time of day ... let alone the day of the week! The Garcia does come equiped with excellent cabin blinds so we can pretend it is night-time out there when we do sleep. As we progress into our journey and towards autumn, the sun is starting to dip below the horizon but rises again before it actually gets dark.

Oh my - another glacier.  They're everywhere around here!

Tay Bay is basically a lake at the bottom of a glacier with an entrance to the sea. It is silty and the glacier glistens at the end of the bay. Being in the Sirmilik National Park, we had to get backcountry passes to anchor there. Our Parks Canada Discovery Pass was not valid! Most people who visit Sirmilik are researchers studying the bird populations, research support such as the helicopter pilots, locals or Parks personnel. They have so few actual visitors, with the six in our group we would be doubling the annual attendance for 2024. Not quite the same visitation levels that Banff National Park gets!

Our Park Passes

The Park protects important migratory bird colonies. They estimate over a million birds nest here on three bird walls. A University of Laval snow goose study has been going on for over 30 years. The waters of Eclipse Bay and Navy Board Inlet are important breeding areas for belugas and narwhals. While cruise ships have started coming into Pond Inlet (where are they not going these days??), they are restricted from crossing Eclipse Bay and exiting via Navy Board Inlet as the noise impacts the marine mammals. At this stage, small boats like ours are still allowed but there are rumblings that it will soon be closed to all vessels.

The landscape is so raw and boundless. Photos (particularly ours taken with our highly sophisticated and diverse camera equipment - the iPhone 11) simply do not show the scale.  We are so privileged to be able to travel through this region by sailboat.   It is such an extraordinary experience.

And check out Marisa and Adriano's video @our_tern on Instagram:

Chapter 93 - Fire in the Sky