YachtTeleport.com

Re-launching, wildlife, leaks, engine repairs, ice, char, parties, and the biggest question of my life: The last couple of weeks have been so action packed that I've not had a chance to sit down and write an update, but as we're going to set sail tomorrow morning at like 4AM, I thought I'd better try and get something out! Sorry it's going to be a bit rushed!

So while Teleport was still up on the cradle, I managed to get the old head off our prehistoric 1976 single-cylinder, hand-start SABB diesel engine, and fit the new head (direct from Norway!) without any dramas. New injector and injector pipe too - everything went suspiciously easy. I even fitted a temperature gauge to the engine - fancy stuff! We test-ran it a few times, letting it draw cooling water from a bucket, and not only did it start easily, but it sounds smoother and happier than ever before! Massive relief. So many things could have gone so wrong with this procedure, and with it all out of the way so early on, we found ourselves with quite a bit of spare time as we waited for the ice to melt enough to launch.

Through the cracks and seal-holes in the ice, we caught some Cod fish, and with our French friend Luc (yacht Roxane, the other yacht that wintered here) we made a great campfire right on one of the floating rafts of sea ice in the bay. I was unsure if the fire would just melt the ice, creating water that would wet the wood and kill the fire, but it works perfectly, just melting a dish-like fire-pit, into which we cooked our foil-wrapped cod - it was delicious. We got our little inflatable RIB dingy and outboard that our mate Rene at Adlair Aviation kindly kept locking in his heated aircraft hangar over the winter, and that too started without a problem, opening up some more distant Char fishing opportunities (to no avail!). As Cambridge Bay has a river running into it, it melts out much faster than the ice jamming our passage between here and the mainland, and over the course of about a week we watched the entire bay turn from solid ice, to a puddle-filled maze, and then - nothing but open water. Time to launch!

To our delight, over the winter, the construction company Kitnuna Projects that lifted Teleport out last season acquired a much more substancial crane than the one that almost overbalanced on us last year, and so the lift operation was a far less heart-in-my-mouth than before, and went flawlessly. Thanks once again Alex for your amazing help, patience and generosity on this. We couldn't help but lift our sail briefly as we put-putted across the bay to tie up on the little T-shaped wharf out the front of town, beside the arctic research boat Martin Bergmann that froze-in over the winter as part of the new arctic research centre that's being built up here, which is overflowing with wonderfully helpful and enthusiastic people, including Matt (who I think can fix anything), and Sarah McNair-Landry (kite-skiing legend who, with her brother, became the first to kite-ski the Northwest Passage, amongst other amazing expeditions.)

Though the bay was melted, outside the ocean remained frozen for weeks, and together with Luc, we eagerly studied the ice charts watching it slowly melt from West to East. It's a strange ice year, apparently as of about a week ago anyway, all the yachts trying to do the passage this year in the West were still in waiting in Nome (our end point) as Barrow (Alaska) is still frozen solid, and those on the East are still waiting in Upernavik, Greenland, as Lancaster Sound was still frozen. At least already being half way through ourselves, we have perhaps 3 weeks head start on anyone else trying to do the passage, and providing nothing goes too wrong, we should have no issues getting through before in terms of the short season. We'll see.

We enjoyed many visits out to friends cabins, ice-fishing, ice-hopping (where you leap from once bobbing piece of ice to the next, out to where the fish are, and then hope your pans pf ice haven't drifted apart so much that you have to cast your line and try and hook onto other floes to reel them in closer again!). It's been magic too to be able to keep visiting the birds nests (falcons, geese, etc) literally watching them crawl out of the eggs when hatching and slowly grow, and the same with the arctic fox den. It's been great leaving the GoPro cameras beside the nests, getting footage of the mother falcon returning to her chicks with small animals she's caught to shred and feed to these little white fluff-balls with beaks! But man-oh-man - the MOSQUITOES!!! For anone who's never been to the Canadian north, I think it'd be impossible to explain how how many, and how frustrating the billions of mozzies are that emerge here for 2-3 weeks in summer. Huge humming clouds descend upon you whenever you stop moving, biting even through shirts and jeans!

Teleport's masthead lights must have received a knock from the crane while lifting out last season, as they were at a funny angle, so I climbed the mast, took them off and spent a day making a new mount for them, including an extension to mount the rather fancy TackTick wireless windspeed-direction indicator that my Dad generously gave us. It look several hours up the mast to re attach everything, and the wind and waves picked up, flinging me around so much almost to the point of vomiting. It was quite the experience, but we got it on, and all was great with Teleport - until we discovered that we were sinking.

Yes, each time I looked into the bilge, we seemed to be taking on more and more water! I'd pump it out, only to find it back in there again the next morning. I checked all the through-hulls and all seemed ok - it had been raining, and we'd been splashing water around washing the deck etc too, so I hoped it was nothing, but day after day it kept coming in, and so I started to try and track it down. I found a leak from the toilet plumbing which I fixed easily, and assumed the problem to be solved. Devastatingly, that evening when we came back onboard late - yet more water! Jess went to sleep, and I stayed up, fretting about where it was coming from, peeking here and there with a torch, drying parts with a paper towel and watching, and then I saw it. Right where I'd just dried, on the side wall of the bilge, a dribble formed and rolled down - it was coming right in through the side of the hull!?!? The horror of this wracked me all night, and I barely slept a wink, until I broken-heartedly told Jess the news in the morning. To fix it would be an epic project, ripping out all the fibreglass in the bilge, drying the sodden wood for ages, trying to find where the leak was originating and repairing that bit of the hull. I wasn't even sure if we'd be able to fix something like this in Cambridge Bay, and certainly not within the week before which we'd have to set sail if we hoped to escape this season. It wasn't even just in one spot, some more trickled in from further forward in the bilge wall too. Was this it it for Teleport? At least for this year? It wasn't a very happy day. We had a few people over to help inspect and bounce ideas off, and in the end it was agreed that a) it's only a slow leak (4L in 24hrs and isn't increasing) easily able to be pumped out each day or so, b) the wood all around the bilge still feels and sounds very solid and firm so it's not like it's rotten or soft - likely it's just coming in around the keel bolts or something and , and c) it's not really in a very structural part of the boat anyway - no huge loads etc, especially being a junk-rig =) So, we decided just to sail on anyway, and when we get to Nome, perhaps we can find some people with more experience to take a look at it, or maybe even someone looking for a fun wood working project over the coming winter... =) Else, we'll likely have to spend the following season repairing telport ourselves, which is a bit disheartening. But for now, our focus is getting to Nome, and we don't believe that this slow leak will effect us getting there at all.

Our food order from Yellowknife tured up - 2 months of food - and Jess somehow managed to squirre it all away inside Teleport's many cupboards and lockers, and even some of the local Inuk kids (who perpetually hang around the wharf, asking to come onboard) even helped pass tins to her. We've had a constant stream of visitors which has been really nice, even going out for a few beautiful midnight-sun cruises with friends etc. We even got invited out to an Elder's camp, where for 10 days or so the elders get together and practice their traditions - everything from dancing, to seal hunting and more. It was amazing to see, and east some seal (boiled in blood, the best! haha) and dried caribou etc. And the Arctic Char - like a salmon but better - so many, and so big!!! Love it. We spent the day out at our friend Brent's cabin (one of my arctic heros, one of the team to be the first to dog sled to the North pole!), and helped him rig his little sailing dingy and launch it, only to then have the wind shift and blow ice back into the bay so we had to quickly pull it back out again! There was also a dead seal in his char net, and so we learnt how to butcher it, and I even rendered down a bit of the seal blubber and poured it into a concave rock I found, put a wick in there and made a successful traditional lamp, the same kind that kept the Inuit warm inside their igloos etc. Good fun. Later we took turns donning our GORE-TEX(R) drysuits and deliberately falling overboard and practicing how to clamber back onboard again - always good.

And by far the most exciting piece of life-changing news ever - the other day I secretly ATV'd out to Mount Pelly (the only mountain around, and clearly visible from afar, with a great Inuk legend associated with it) and spent many hours finding the perfect spot: One with a breathtaking view out across the mosaic of lakes stretching across the tundra to the ocean in the distance; right on the edge with a big secondary grassy slope popping out just below which only becomes visible once you walk right up close to the edge. I then laboriously built a lovely little stone table and chair set at that point, and then dropped down onto the ledge below and spelled out two words about 1.5m high each with white rocks, built an inukshuk to mark the place, and rushed back to town. After convincing Jess that we should go camping that night, we borrowed a muskox hide from Brent, gathered a few other secret items and putted off back out to the mountain. It was still raining lightly (or 'mini-ing' as they call it here), but the weather forecast promised sunshine and when we finally got to the top it was perfect. Pretending I needed a toilet break, I hurried over to the spot, lit a bunch of candles rimming my little stone table, and cambe back and surprised Jess with a thermos mug of mulled-wine (her favourite) that our good friend (and amazing cook) Athlyne had secretly made for me. Together we wandered over to 'check out the inukshuk I saw' and when Jess saw the little table and bench I'd made she couldn't believe it, and was so delighted that she didn't even see the words 'MARRY ME' that had now emerged on the hillside below. It took a while, but suddenly I saw her spot it, and which she stared at it in complete disbelief, I dropped down on one knee and offered her a ring, asking if she'd be mine forever. I should point out that the ring was only a tiny stainless steel hose-clamp (one size fits all and super ajustable with a screwdriver) but it apparently did the trick, and to my joy, Jess didn't even hesitate in her reply 'Yes!' =) How lucky am I!?!? (Can you imagine if she said 'no' - that'd be an awkward 2 month sail hey!). We slept on a wonderfully cosy muskox rug after cooking up some fresh Arctic char, and we even had fireworks that I'd saved from the ones Jess bought me last year for my Bday! It was pretty special, and something I've been planning for ages, and been stressing about ever ince asking her parents for permission in June. =)

The next day some of our friends threw us a lovely farewell party, culminating in presenting us with the most amazing Teleport cake you could imagine! Apparently they spent ages on it, crawling over Teleport when we weren't there to check even the finest details, and colour matching the hull, the sails, everything. Right down to the fuel-cap, on the fuel tank, on our blow up dingy towing behind. We couldn't believe it! We can't thank you all enough - especially Athlyne, Myretha, Laura, Sam and Kierson - it was such a wonderful night, that went on till 4:30 AM - good ol' 24hr sun! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful group of friends here in Cambridge Bay - it'll be sad to leave, but I'm sure we'll find an excuse to come back here agin in the not too distant future.

The weather GRIB files show that tonight, the winds will finally shift to the East, and blow a perfect 10-15kn for perhaps 4 or 5 days, to blow us merrily onwards toward Alaska - first stop, Holman (Ulukhaktok), perhaps 4 days away. Perfect. The ice has receded completely out of our way, and *fingers crossed* we shouldn't even see any at all. Tomorrow morning at 4AM Luc (aboard his yacht Roxane) and us aboard Teleport will cast off and set sail! So excited! Our friends Brent Boddy and Sarah McNair-Landry are intending to hop onboard and sail out with us, we'll tow their kayaks behind, and when we get too far out, they'll hop in their kayaks and head home, leaving us to continue our dream of sailing the Northwest Passage. Thanks once again to all our many friends here who've all helped make Cambridge Bay such a special place for us, everyone already mentioned above and also especially to Keith & Patricia who let us stay with them for the first few weeks before we launched Teleport, Keith & Tash, Matt, Dan, Tom, Wilf, Amy, Becky & Jen, Colin, Mikey, Paul, Renee, Jeanie, the list goes on... =)

In other news, we just finished another action-packed video update with heaps of great footage etc in it which I really think you'll enjoy. It's embedded below, and also in the VIDEO page on our site.

Our tracker for the website unfortunately hasn't arrived here yet, and so we'll have to get it re-forwarded to our next stop, and hope then to have our website map live again, but for now, you'll just have to wait for the updates! (we're updating family and Coast Guard with out poz daily though). Don't forget to send us a message through the website to keep us company as we sail - it can be a bit lonely out there sometimes!