YachtTeleport.com

Well that's it for another year! Jess and I are now safely home in sunny Sydney, Australia, enjoying the beach without having to check over our shoulder for polar bears, feeling the actual heat from the sun melt into our skins, and happily watching the wind and the waves, without feeling that gnawing anxiety of having to try and sail through it all, before it freezes solid. Absolute bliss.

So our last update had us reluctantly refuelled and ready to sail onwards to NakNek to winter Teleport there (along with another yacht Philos that sailed in and was in the same situation as us), as things were looking increasingly complicated to winter yachts here in Nome. However, as those of you watching our Solara Tracker position would have noticed, we didn't end up leaving. Literally on the way back to Teleport having just sent that update, I walked into Jess (and Luc from Roxane) coming the other way looking for me, and they didn't look happy. In fact, by the time Jess had explained, she was in tears. We'd never managed to extract a quote from the harbourmaster at Naknek, but apparently the other yacht Philos had finally managed to get a dollar value, and at more than $7,000 it was just completely out of the question. The only definite option left was to sail onwards nonstop for almost two weeks all the way round to Seward near Anchorage. That was Philos's decision, and they reluctantly left and sailed onwards. We on the other hand simply didn't have the time, or desire to sail any further this season. We were done. In a strange way, this news that Naknek was out of the question came as a relief, and we simply strengthened our resolve that we WOULD FIND A WAY to stay here in Nome. There had to be a way.

The best option was to borrow the super-fancy hydraulic fishing boat trailer from the local fishing group that we figured would do the job easily, with pad supports that simply extend up to mould the hull shape etc. There were there top-dog, big burley fishermen in charge of it, and we met with first one, and then another, and both chewed it over and amazingly agreed to help us out, despite in the background their crews audibly groaning "I thought you were going to be hard-lined on this, after last time…" The final decision maker was still fishing out at sea, and we allowed ourselves to believe that we'd been saved, and spent the next few days exploring and enjoying Nome and it's surrounds while we waited. It was wonderful. We were given enormous king crabs (the best crab meal we've ever had, and literally couldn't finish it all), we drove like 60 miles out of town with a friend Peter who took us to the thermal hot springs where we soaked for hours in a solitary giant steaming wooden barrel just sitting in the middle of the tundra being fed by a pipe coming out of the ground, overlooking white snow-capped mountains towering above valleys breathtakingly pained in the vivid reds, greens and yellows of Autumn/Fall's transitory brush. It's hard to describe how beautiful this time of year is here in Alaska. Moose and bear tracks criss-crossed the tundra, which itself was blanketed almost everywhere in a carpet of various edible berries, more than we could ever eat. Later we followed the coastal road out of town and came upon a herd of 14 Muskox and slowly stole quietly towards them getting some great shots, we saw marmots, birds and more. We made friends with many amazing people, enjoyed many wonderful dinners with locals - thanks so much to Rolland, Deb and the girls; Pat, Sue and Peter; and it was also great to meet the other yachts that came through, some having also just completed The Northwest Passage.

We also met David and Jayne from the impressively solid-looking, $million+, purpose-built ice-rated metal motorboat Polar Bound. We actually met David last year as he aboard Polar Bound passed Cambridge Bay doing his 4th transit, and now he's done his 5th (that's a record), actually managing a new route through the passage this year, passing above Banks Island which up until now has always been too jammed with ice. Congrats! Times they are a changing hey. Mind you, it's rather a different game for him - Polar Bound rocketed all the way from England to Nome in about 1 month, only made one brief stop (in Greenland - no stops at all in the northwest passage), they said they were mostly fog-bound and too far away from shore to see it, and managed to race the entire way from crossing into The Arctic Circle, through the passage, and back out of the circle again all in a total of about 16 days, burning literally 5 tonnes of diesel along the way. Wow. Jess and I certainly respect him for his remarkable achievements, but I have to say, we wouldn't trade places for a moment! For us, the whole joy of being up in this remarkable corner of the planet is all the amazing places we stop at, see and explore, all the stunning the wildlife, the friendly people we meet, the cultural insights - in fact, if we really could 'Teleport' instantaneously from one little stop-over to the next, skipping the sailing bit, I have to admit, there were several unpleasant times when we'd have gladly done exactly that!

If was just as we were sitting down to another dinner with friends that my local phone rang (that Rolland had kindly lent us). Hastily excusing myself and scrabbling outside into the icy night, I answered it. It was Rolland, together in the truck with Phil (the second of the big burley fishermen we'd convinced). To my horror, they explained to me that the third key fisherman had returned, and that he had flat-out refused to let any sailboats use the hydraulic trailer. Bombshell. Not that I can blame him for a moment, I mean, what with the history of things going wrong in the past when they tried to help, and one yacht even suing them in return, why on earth should they risk their trailer which the whole fishing fleet cooperatively depends upon, and waste their valuable end of season fishing time, to work out how to lift out a couple of fragile, unusually shaped sailboats that they don't even know? Totally fair enough. But now we really were in trouble. Now we really didn't even have time to sail to Naknek even if we could afford it, let alone further - before we had to be back in Oz for work and a whole host of other commitments like Jess going to a family wedding, and the mornings were already becoming increasingly frosty, and puddles starting to freeze over. Damnit! Luc board Roxanne was likewise shattered, and was clearly starting to regret his choice to believe in our optimism and stay, rather than already be sailing halfway to Seward. Standing outside in the cold on the phone, I felt really guilty about Luc; gutted that I knew despite not wanting to do any more sailing this year, Jess would choose to come with me, and miss seeing her family at the wedding that she'd so been looking forward to; and I felt angry and embarrassed that I'd likely have to cancel various business arrangements like sold-out photo courses and art Expo presentations back home; and scared at the idea of having to now sail onwards so far, so late in the season. "Is there no other option?" I asked, without hope.

"I don't know. We're trying…" Phil and Rolland said, without hope. "One of my mates has a tip-truck we might be able to use somehow," Said Phil, "and we're heading out now to see if we can talk any of the cranes into it…" I ran out to the road and hopped in as they drove past, and I sat there feeling very small as they spent several hours driving around to various construction sites trying to pull favours with various cranes to no avail - all were either too small or too busy to get involved. In the end Rolland had to go home to prepare for work early next morning, and I was left with the bearded giant, Phil, as he tried calling anyone he could think of, and driving way out of town to this and that friend's house who he couldn't reach by phone. I had received an email from a chap named Christian at some 'Lost Dog Mine' who'd offered the use of a truck if we needed it, and grasping at straws, we drove all the way out to the mine as darkness set in. The last couple of km of road literally followed in and around a flowing river, we even spotted some salmon swimming ahead out of the way of the truck - at times we forded sections so deep that the bow wave from the truck came up and spilled back across the top of the bonnet. Trying to maintain positive conversation I explained how impressed I was at the truck's ability and wondered how deep the truck could go - to which he replied "Me too - I've never taken it this deep…" I couldn't believe how much Phil was doing for us to try and help. He then explained he was a bit anxious about meeting this guy, because a while back he'd had to shoot his dog, and Phil wasn't sure if he'd been forgiven. Still we drove onwards into the night, listening to branches scrape and snarl against the side of his truck. While trying to look around for the right way forward, I wound down the electric truck window on my side, only to discover that it wouldn't wind back up. Great. So now I'd broken his truck too. I unscrewed the switch panel hopping to easily find a poorly connected wire, but couldn't. Some electrical engineer I am hey. "Don't worry about it," Phil said, "I'll fix it later". Eventually we found the mine site, only to discover Christian wasn't home. We saw the big flatbed truck he'd been offering us though, which didn't look all that usable now that we looked at it, even if we had a crane to lift Teleport on. Frozen and dejected, we turned and headed back. Around one blind corner we did come face to face with a big moose and calf - my first ever, which slightly lifted my mood, but of course I didn't have a camera. *groan*. Haha. It was impossible, but despite it all, Phil remained friendly and ever willing to help. "I'll try a few more people tomorrow" he said, dropping me back at Teleport.

The next morning (a few hours later) Phil came onboard Teleport, cheery as ever, ready to get back into solving our problem. He said he'd found someone with a fishing boat trailer that he thought might just suit our sailboat, so we went out to take a look. It was huge, rather old-looking, but designed for a pretty flat-bottomed boat, and the adjustable pad supports (with their semi-broken, rotten pad supports) just didn't have enough height adjustment to lift the hull high enough to prevent the keel dragging on the ground. "We can modify it.." Phil said optimistically. "…build some new taller pad supports…make some new pads - i've got some wood - and weld something on here… Yeah I think we can make this work. What do you think?" Willing to clutch at any straws that presented themselves, I agreed. We then spent the rest of the day working non-stop to convert the trailer to suit a yacht. We bought $300 worth of steel pipe, scrounged some angle-iron, bought a whole bag of nuts and bolts, loaded his truck with piles of wood that he had in his yard at home, dragged over his trailer with a generator and welder on there, and then and there beside the trailer, oxy-cut / blow-torch cut up the lengths of metal, blew ragged holes for all the bolts with the oxy-torch, used the grinder to make this and that fit better, all of it without safety goggles or gloves. I stood way back in horrified awe. At one point, when blasting holes in the steel sending showers of molten, orange-hot gobs of liquid metal everywhere (including in his beard), I did mumble something about safety glasses, to which he said "oh, um, yeah, in the back of the truck I think". I grabbed them and brought them over to him, but he brushed them aside, laughing "Nagh not for me, I thought you wanted them?" haha. Amazing.

It was after dark when we finally stood back to admire our finished yacht trailer, and although Phil was keen to continue right on and try and pull Teleport out that night, I was a bit too buggered and feared the stupid mistakes that may follow. Unfortunately this meant we'd have to wait a further three days as Phil was heading out in the morning on his long-line fishing boat to catch more Halibut, still, I felt it was the right thing to do.

With a solution hopefully ready for us, those three days of genuine relaxing in Nome were wonderful. We bought a $6 gold pan and spent a few hours wandering the beach sifting through pans of the gold-laden back/red sand that washes up in storms, and the final swill on each pan always revealed dozens of tiny flecks of gold 'flour' (though somehow I think it'd have taken hours to even begin to pay off the gold pan, but we had fun anyway). Phil's wife is just starting up a delicious little cafe/restaurant in Nome called 'Pingo' that I fully recommend everyone to go to - best King Crab & Halibut omlets in the North, and the chocolate croissants are to die for! While killing time, I even briefly hooked a massive salmon that was swimming around Teleport at the dock. News of our trip and specifically Jess and my engagement somehow reached the Australian morning national TV show 'Sunrise' several weeks ago, and they'd been trying to organise an interview over the satellite phone ever since, but now with great internet at a friend's place we managed to upload them some video and do a Skype video link-up interview. They put together a very beautiful little 5-minute segment on our trip, entitled "World's best marriage proposal?" with lots of great footage from our trip - take a look, you can watch it online HERE. We also found out that it seems that apart from Teleport becoming the first Junk-Rig sailboat to ever make it through The Passage, I've now also become the youngest skipper to ever sail The Northwest Passage in any boat, and together, Jess and I are also the youngest couple to ever transit it - good fun! I guess it just goes to show that you don't need to be Amundsen anymore to get through these days, a combination of better technology and charts, and importantly ever melting arctic ice. In fact, this week just gone past the arctic ice has melted to it's lowest extent EVER on record, opening up vast areas for oil & gas exploitation etc, as we ourselves witnessed along the north Alaskan coast. Greenpeace have actually launched their biggest campaign ever, aimed at trying to convince world leaders to declare a polar sanctuary around the North Pole, similar to the agreement the world has in Antarctic to preserve that continent for the benefit of science and world's environment. If you'd like to add your name to the almost 2,000,000 people showing their support for this important initiative, to help preserve all that Jess and I have enjoyed seeing and sharing with you, take a look at www.SaveTheArctic.org

Before we knew it, Phil was back from fishing and we cast-off from the dock and motored around the the rather steep concrete ramp down which he'd reversed the epic trailer into the water, shackled up to his 4WD ute / truck. Our good mate Rolland was there in his drysuit to help guide Teleport onto the frame and to check the pads were all sitting properly. On the first attempt the rear pads got jammed against the bow - the trailer just wasn't deep enough. Chewing his knuckles in concentration, Phil reversed his truck still lower into the water, the whole back half and tray-top completely submerged, and I tried coming in again. Still too high! Damnit! I reversed back out and spent a pleasant hour perfecting the difficult art of manoeuvring Teleport in reverse around the little harbour while Phil and Rolland pulled the trailer out and then and there started grinding off the pad support poles, shortening them in a shower of sparks, and re welding them on wider apart, before they waved me over for a third attempt. This time, with all my 8-horses galloping full-tilt in the engine box below, we managed to squeeze past the first set of pads and sit neatly resting with the bow pushing against the front two pads. We tied Teleport's bow to the back of the tuck, and gently tried to haul her out just a bit, to see how she sat as the back pads rose up. Tires squealing, it soon became apparent that the truck just didn't have the weight to haul us out, so he called over a friend who daisy-chained his ute/truck to Phil's with a webbing strap and together they muscled their trucks against it, and Teleport started to emerge, but on an awkward angle. Roland dived under and found that one of the back pads was not sitting flat, and in fact the corner of it had jabbed quite a nice sized hole/ding into the hull. Bummer. Back down, reposition, and tried again, this time with THREE trucks all tied together. "3 more feet!"... looks good. "Another 3 feet!" still good. And at last, Teleport rose up out of the water, the keel just clearing the ground by about one inch as Phil slowly started the long drive around to the fenced boat storage area. At some points the keel literally dragged along the ground leaving a line of anti-paint foul on the gravel, but we made it! Phil heroically reverse-parked Teleport in the back of the yard, and we jacked the trailer up a little, wedged a block under the keel and built two wooden cradle supports to hold Teleport, and then let the trailer down and drove it out from underneath, ready to pull out Luc's boat the next morning, which also went well. I can't thank Phil and Rolland enough for what they did for us - they dropped everything for days to help us out and make this work, did it all in such an impossibly friendly and matter-of-course way, and then, at the end, refused to accept even a $1 payment, no matter how hard we tried. It's people like them in the North who are just so genuinely friendly and helpful that really make it such a special place, and makes us wonder sometimes about the lack of community and generosity that often seems to permeate more busy, city lives. We've always been shown such amazing generosity on all of our trips, be that cycling, sailing, sled-hauling - whatever - that we're now more determined than ever to try and give back as much as we can to other travellers in similar positions. So Phil and Rolland, thank you, and we will pass on your generosity to others.

The haul out was pretty nail-biting stuff, one of the pad support poles bent a little, some planks of wood exploded under the pressure of the jack, and I'd have to say I wouldn't want to do this again if I had a choice. However, with the ever in creasing trickle of yachts coming through looking to winter over here, Phil and Rolland have decided they plan to build a dedicated yacht trailer over the winter, to start servicing these needs as a side business. So if you're thinking of wintering here, give us a yell and I'll put you in touch with these guys and if they've got the trailer ready then Nome will be an excellent wintering location - but otherwise, I'd recommend people stop here for sure, but don't aim to winter here until then!

We had a grand total of one day to winterise Teleport, emptying the water tanks, draining the toilet, flushing the engine and outboard cooling with antifreeze, and drilled some holes in the keel to help let the leaking water weep out before it freeze/thaws too much. It was too windy to attempt to shrink-wrap Teleport with the awesome self-contained shrink-wrapping kit we get sent from Dr. Shrink to protect Teleport for the winter, but we got it all ready and Rolland very kindly said he'd shrink it for us on the next calm day. Thanks Rolland, you're a legend! And that's it - the very next day we were off - jetting back to reality on a saga of 5 flights. Once home, it was straight back into it - next day Jess flew to Queensland to attend (and photograph) her cousin's wedding, and I presented a series of photo workshops at a big art expo in Sydney. No rest for the wicked hey! Next season we hope to fly back to Teleport in early June, spend a pleasant month sailing through the Aleutians and on south on to Seward and Prince William Sound (which is apparently brimming with marine life, orcas, seals, otters, etc and the shores lined with grizzly bears, etc!!), then swap to bicycles and cycle to Anchorage then up to Fairbanks and done to Haines to get fit for a month and a half, before just making it home int time to run a new photo safari - to Kenya for the Migration! The year after that, perhaps back up north, and follow the Aleutians along over across to Russia, down the Kamchatka peninsula and so on! Who knows!

The next video updates are a work in progress, and we'll be sure to let you know when they're online! Don't forget to add your email to our friends and family email list online to be sure you get an email notification telling you when it's up!

We really hope that you've enjoyed following our journey thus year as much as we've enjoyed sharing it with you - thanks so much for all your wonderful messages of encouragement and friendship - it's been simply amazing, and already we can't wait to be back! What an adventure it's been!

Lastly, a big special thanks to Luc Dupont aboard Roxane - it's been an absolute pleasure and a privilege to sail in convoy with you so much this year - you're an amazing man.