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Today we had an 80-mile jump to Hopedale. We left with the earliest sign of light in hopes of making it to Hopedale with time to explore the town. The morning was a pretty one, or so I was told. The anchor lifted and strapped down, I looked at the 4 other people who had woken for the departure, all with coffee in their hands, and decided that I was good to go back to bed. The second time I woke up the weather was fair with spots of sun on the water and, for the first time in

We awoke today to an absolutely beautiful sunny day. It's at least 15 degrees warmer today than it has been since we left Newfoundland and everyone is making sure soak it up. We had a slow morning while everyone caught up on sleep and packed their day bags, and then everyone left to go hiking. That is everyone but me! In the last few days of being tied up to wharfs where everyone goes on and off the boat regularly, the floors have become sandy to the point where everyone's sh

We walked into the grocery store as the doors opened this morning. The restocking ship had come last night, and we were excited to see the produce options. They were okay. I wanted bananas, which there were none of, but otherwise the store had a variety of fruits and vegetables in small quantities, including some raspberries I got for breakfast. Just before leaving, we heard from a very nice local who came to see the boat that there was good scallop diving in some nearby area

Today we had the whole day to explore Nain. In the morning Jennifer and I went to do the laundry and connect to real internet while everyone else moved the reefing lines up one point on the main; once we each finished our tasks respectively, we all got set loose. I tried in vain again to get the boat to myself for a deep cleaning, so I gave up and went for a longer walk around the town, which was lovely but lacked much of anything other than houses and grocery stores to explo

Today was one of the early mornings. We needed to get to Nain by the end of the day, which was 100 miles away. We started at twilight in slight fog that just capped the far mountains. Our plan was to take an inland route weaving through the small coastal islands until we reached Nain. The morning was very calm with not a breath of wind or really any other noise other than the engine humming away at cruising speed. For the first few hours, it was just Nathan and me chatting aw

When we awoke the weather was perfectly calm and the reflection of the mountains in the mirror-like water brought about by the calm was perhaps my favorite view from the whole trip so far. We set out for our hike around 7 am, landing at the head of the fjord to the sounds of Skip yelling at us from the boat not to do so as it meant we had to carry the shore barrel to the high sides of the river from the head. Despite this, we were in high spirits brought about by excitement f

Today we woke up for a lazy day in Hebron. Everyone except Nathan, who was still asleep, went ashore to walk around while I got my chance to kick around the boat and tidy up with no one else aboard until Nathan woke about halfway through. When everyone came back, they told me that they actually got to have breakfast with Noah and the other inhabitants of Hebron, which I was a bit sad to miss. Afterward, we got ready to move on to one of the places Nathan had been looking to g

We left Saglek Fjord today in search of somewhere we could go ashore. We decided on Hebron Bay. On our way, we finally did something we'd been talking about doing since the start of the trip, which was diving on an iceberg. Diving is maybe a strong word because we didn't want to get all the gear out, so "diving" looked like lowering ourselves into the water that was slushy with ice wearing just our bathing suits and wetsuit hoods and then popping back out as quickly as we cou

I awoke after a pretty poor night's sleep for my 9 am watch. The fog was in again, so there wasn't much to see other than a large iceberg only 200 m off the beam that made itself visible for 30 seconds as the fog very quickly lifted, and what I'm pretty sure was a solitary orca that breached twice next to the boat. After another 3 hours and a frustratingly crumbly Spanish tortilla I made, we arrived in Saglek Fjord. Saglek Fjord was stunning but posed an issue for us; it's pa

Today started as a very relaxed day at Port Burwell. We were looking to head through the McLelan Strait today, which meant we wanted to leave around 4:00 pm with no real plans before then. With our free time we decided to go for a longer walk around the island that made the western side of Port Burwell. The island was well populated by birds of prey and caribou. We even made it to a snowfield where Helene and Nathan had a snowball fight, and I held back knowing how the teams

I woke up early today to bake my bread that had been proofing overnight for breakfast. We had a longer day in front of us because we planned to leave the Button Islands and needed to leave at high tide in order to reach our shorelines and have favorable current across the Gray Strait. I was slow on getting my bread in the oven, and so after a porridge breakfast Helene and Nathan left to go untie the shorelines without me despite my protests that I was almost done 10 minutes b

The weather, as predicted, was not better today and we were again unable to leave the boat today. We were, however, a bit better at finding things to do as we filled our morning with productive tasks such as making some new sail ties to replace the random bits of scrap line we had been using, and tying a net from scratch in order to improve our boot storage, which had been in need of an upgrade for, we're told, the last 10 or so years. The skill of net tying was a satisfying

We did not make it ashore today either. There were driving rains and heavy fog, and in order to go ashore with our new friend the polar bear we needed dry conditions not to ruin the guns and decent visibility in order to see the bears before they were close enough to run over and give us a hug. Instead, we spent the morning playing games and reading. Eventually growing tired of both, we moved on to trying to make our own kite out of a trash bag and skewers, which offered abou

Today was the day we had planned to go ashore and do our polar bear practice and some hiking. After 7 days at sea, which is not a lot compared to lots of passages, but still substantial especially in the cold, we, but especially Helene and Nathan, were itching to stretch our legs and feel some solid ground. First, however, we needed to clean up the boat after seven days of neglect. This involved vacuuming and scrubbing everything and an engine service. Something which felt as

Today we awoke with the knowledge that, unless something went very awry, we would be anchored and ready for a full night's sleep by the end of the day. A thought that brought all of us, and certainly myself, some solace as I had just been informed that I have navigational conversations with Skip in my sleep, which seems a good sign that a break would be appreciated. The weather and scenery were all of a sudden as if we were five degrees further north than we were yesterday, a

This morning started with, drum roll please, a beautiful open scenery of the ocean, the blue sky, and the stunning Labrador coast. We have over 35 nm miles of visibility this morning which, with a little petty math, means that in this one instant we can see almost three times the amount of surface area than we've seen in the last four days of fog excluding the brief bit it cleared on the second. This has certainly had a positive effect on crew morale and everyone is very much

Today we woke up and it was foggy, and it stayed foggy. It seems to be a bit of a trend for Labrador and as Skip said: "maybe the reason not that many people come here." Dede let me sleep in extra this morning after last night's engine debacle by sitting the first half of our watch by himself. I was able to pay it forward almost immediately by sitting some extra time afterwards to let Helene and Nathan sleep in, and everyone seems better off for having the extra sleep. Morale

Today again started with thick fog, this time with the addition of pouring rain, which Dd says is an oxymoron because "it never rains, it only pours." There was also a new chill in the air which I shook by turning off the autopilot and actually steering for a while. The wind had built to 25–30 knots, which, while it feels plenty safe on Pelagic, is uncomfortable when heading dead downwind and made cooking a challenge. The boat that had been following us for the last 24 hours

When Dd and I got up for our 3–6 am "sunrise" watch this morning, there was no sun to be seen. Outside of the 200-meter radius directly around the boat, nothing could be seen other than the soft grey of fog. The water was a glassy calm which only reflected and amplified the greyness that enveloped us; the only respite from the dull greenness were the sharp lines of an equally grey shark that followed us for all of 20 meters before deciding we had nothing to offer. The fog lay

Today we woke up at sea, and went to bed at sea. It's the second day of our trip and everyone has started to fall into the rhythm of watches and the practice of sleeping away about half the day. Our watch schedule is 3 hours on watch with a partner and then 6 hours off. This watch schedule gives you enough time to live a life outside of watch, but you're still never getting more than 6 hours of sleep at a time at best. We had dense fog for the majority of today, so while awak