Tuktoyaktuk - 69°27′03″ N 133°02′09″ W

Polar Bound - skippered by the legendary David Cowper

From the protection of Summer Bay, we watched the storm clouds pass over and around us and listened to the wind whistle through the rigging.  All the boats in our convoy had pulled into shelter.  Thor, Hauru and Night Owl in Summer Bay, Lumina in Letty Harbour on the east side of the Parry Peninsula and Sky Dancer and Myhann at Pearce Point to the east. We were also joined by Polar Bound and a tug boat with two huge work barges.  The break gave us the opportunity to rest and do some forward planning.

Wind and rain - but the blue sky started to peep through!

Due to time constraints and concern for the weather slowing progress, we planned to disembark from Voyager at Tuktoyaktuk.  Our friend Lorne was driving up from Whitehorse to meet us.  He had flown up from San Francisco just to make this journey.  Lorne, you are a legend!  One small complication was he needed to catch a return flight from Whitehorse and needed to be back at work for some important meetings.  If we missed him, we'd have to hitchhike!  

That's a rather nasty current!

Fortunately, the weather blew through and we were able to continue westwards.  Unfortunately, there was a rather strong current that runs around Cape Bathurst and the Ballie Islands - in the opposite direction from where we needed to go.  This is not a tidal current and does not change directions.  We would have this against us the whole time. Our route around the current would take us at least 12nm offshore.  It was a toss up whether to just buck it or take the long way around.  

Because it was just a strong current, not one associated with overfalls and sea conditions that make the likes of Lizard and Portland in the south of England so dangerous, we decided to buck it.  With high engine revs and 7.5kn boat speed, we managed to to chug around at about 3kn Speed Over Ground (SOG).  Slow going but little by little we rounded the cape and started down the peninsula towards Tuktoyaktuk. 

The shallow entrance into Tuktoyaktuk

After weeks and weeks of endless daylight, it has started to get dark at night.  And the length of that darkness has increased rapidly each day closer towards the Autumn Equinox. It was dark as we began our approach into Tuktoyaktuk.  The entrance is very shallow with a series of leads guiding towards the channel into the harbour.  Many of these leads were missing and with the darkness and shallow, we made the prudent decision to anchor until it was light and enter the harbour when we could see.  This was a very wise decision.

Another grainy photo of the Northern Lights from our anchorage at Tuktoyaktuk.

The Northern Lights appeared to welcome us.  We drank Baileys and hot chocolate, reminiscing about the voyage, swapping photos and retelling the scary, awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping and just plain funny tales.  We all patted each other on the back for surviving on a small boat together for over two months without squabbles, anger or tossing someone overboard!  

A huge thanks to Adriano and Marisa for sharing their adventure with us.  It has been an absolute blast!