YachtTeleport.com

Listen up folks - hear all about it! Chris and I will be flying to Brisbane tomorrow (Wednesday) morning for a 1hr interview with Richard Fidler on his very popular “Conversations with Richard Fidler" program - an in depth and personal chat all about our arctic sailing adventure. It will be broadcast live on ABC Local Radio all around Australia (almost). For those of you who live in NSW, QLD, SA & TAS tune in (check online for your local ABC local radio frequency) at 11am AEST tomorrow (Wednesday 30th May), and for those in WA tune in a 7pm and for the poor folk who cant get to the radio or live in VIC, NT or any where else in the world, then you can or download the pod-cast afterwards at
www.abc.net.au/conversations

Plenty of things have been keeping us busy before our return to the Arctic this year - not only have we been flying all across the Australia delivering our 1 Day Photography courses, but Chris also just spent a month in Borneo on an amazing photographic assignment for Australian Geographic Outdoor, finding and photographing some of the worlds rarest animals. He was lucky enough to get special government permits allowing him access into some of the behind the scenes research and rehabilitation programs going on there! See photos here. While Chris was sweating it out in Borneo's humidity, I spent a few weeks with my extended family freezing in Germany and Austria, hitting the Alps with a snowboard and flying high with a bit of paragliding! Awesome!

As explained in our previous update, the plan is still to head back to Teleport - on a hillside near Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island - at the end of June.

We've decided not to attempt to replace the entire engine. As easy as it sounded to just 'swap' old for new, it could easily have turned into an absolute nightmare trying to lift out the old engine (likely overbalancing Teleport in her cradle!) and refit a new one, especially in- a place like Cambridge Bay where it wouldn't even get warm enough for things like epoxy to set. Instead we've purchased a new 'head' for the engine, which is currently in transit to Cambridge Bay. The head was the bit that actually rusted through last time, and it's quite easy to replace. Mark my words. Haha. And I'm sure the rest of the engine is probably in A-1 condition. Surely.

We're very thrilled to announce that as of about 5 minutes ago, top-of-the-line sailing clothing brand Henri Lloyd has agreed to sponsor us! GORE-TEX® has kindly provided them with free fabric to make us each a pair of their very best Ocean jackets and hi fit pants, to keep us both snug, dry & stylin' for the rest of our sailing days. One gold (yellow-ish) and the other red, so that we can tell our suits apart! So proud! Thanks very much guys! =) Thanks also to our friends at Dirty Dog eyeware, who are providing us with some new sunnies to ward off those 24hr sunlight rays! Thanks!

I have ordered all the paper charts that we need, the Canadian ones are already with a friend in CBay and the Alaskan charts are rolled up in our living room un-opened - just waiting for Chris and I to sit down together for an hour or so and do some route planning. Hopefully we'll get them opened before we find ourselves in CBay! We've been just so hectic it's crazy. I have just finished writing a shopping list for this year's sailing, which includes our staples - lots of canned meals, milk -powder, oats, coffee & chocolate. We are intending to purchase this in Yellowknife and get it flown ahead to Cambridge Bay.

As we're sailing to Alaska this year, we needed to apply for an American Visa. So on Thursday morning we spent two hours being interviewed at the American Consulate office in Sydney, where they basically just laughed at our sailing plans and said "We get a lot of people in here wanting to sail to Hawaii, but never to Nome - good luck!" As crazy as we apparently seemed, he still thankfully approved our USA Visas, which cost us more than $400!

Now, we thought that was an expensive visa, but wait till you hear about permits to sail to Russia! In our last update we were toying with the idea of sailing to the wildlife mecca of Wrangle island in Siberia - however after much research and networking, we discovered that a Russian boating permit will set us back around $15,000 - involving five separate permits, several actually needing to be signed by good ol' Vladimir Putin himself. Apparently they don't recognise any difference between a 29-foot yacht and a 700 ft luxury cruise liner - the fees are the same - just unfortunately split between somewhat fewer passengers in our case! Unhappily, it seems we'll need this permit next year anyway to sail anywhere in Russia, including our intended route down the Kamchatka Peninsula. This has some what shattered that dream a little, but we've recovered from plenty of other setbacks - so either we come up with $15,000, or find someone who knows Vladimir Putin personally to ask him to kindly waive the fees or find some other avenue through which to get the right permits cheaper. On this topic of Russian access, your suggestions, ideas and comments would be greatly appreciated! Maybe your father's friend's brother's sister is married to Ol' Vladimir? Yes?

As you read this, winter is slowly starting to melt away in the arctic. In fact, my trusty iPhone told me that yesterday was one of the first 'above zero' days of the year, and the sun should already be swinging 24hr sunlight. The next few weeks will be the real test for Teleport's over-winter in the Arctic, as when the sun reaches it's highest each 'day' the snow and ice will melt, and water and condensation will trickle down into little gaps etc, and then at 'night' when the sun sweeps very low, it'll freeze again, and as anyone who's ever left a beer in the freezer by mistake knows, ice has a nasty habit of expanding as it freezes, cracking and forcing things apart, which then fills with even more water the next day, and then cracks apart even further… and then… yes, let's not dwell to heavily on what freeze-thaw cycles can do to little wooden yachts shall we? We'll see what's left when we get there hey. Fingers crossed it's not as bad as when we first found Teleport in Halifax!

In other news Chris's parents Vicky and Andrew have just left Pittwater NSW, to spend the next 2-3years circumnavigating Australia in their 44 ft homebuilt yacht Starship that Chris and his sister Sarah grew up on for 5 years, circumnavigating the world. Bon Voyage! We wish them smooth sailing - they are currently almost at Brisbane

Congrats also to our friends Fred & Patricia in Halifax who - after helping us get Teleport into action and then following our adventures - have been inspired to buy themselves a beautiful yacht and are now getting ready to go sailing themselves! That's awesome! =) And to our sailing friends Lez and Ali who you'll recall tragically lost their yacht in a storm on Greenland soon after we parted ways last year, they too have got themselves a new yacht (metal this time! See their site www.ArcticTernExpeditions.co.uk) and are headed back to Greenland again - talk about getting right back on the horse! Good on you guys! You're an inspiration to us both.

Just a quick reminder that if you haven't already joined our Yacht Teleport Facebook Page - well - you should, because then you'll get timely updates about our preps, sneak preview photos and more! www.facebook.com/YachtTeleport <-- Visit it now!

Thanks again to all our friends - Doug, Paul etc who've been snapping pics of Teleport bravely sitting out the winter on her snowy hillside these past weeks. Cant wait to see you all again soon!

Cheerio, and keep those Vladimir Putin contacts flowing.

Jess & Chris