September 29 home again

 We’re home physically but my thoughts still drift rather like ocean weeds awash among the imagines particularly of our journey through the Northwest Passage. I am loath to let them vanish.

Snapped as the wheels hit the tarmac

Four months, almost to the day, 1000s of km away from home and we’re finally back! We touched down at Tulla Monday 1pm. So good to be home! We collapsed inside in a tumble of cases. First things first - check there’s some bubbles in the fridge and enough food etc so we can pull up the drawbridge and hole up for a few days. Then we headed out to the garden, our happy green sky-space. 

Love these beauties. Not bad not having had any attention for 4 months 

Our wee lemon tree

Sweet and juicy

Bee heaven

The orchids were trailing long waving flags of flowers to greet us and the herbs were crowding to the edges of front and side gardens. And lemons! Our wee lemon tree is weighed down with a dozen gorgeous golden orbs and tons of fragrant flowers (as is the lime tree) - happy bees are everywhere. The fragrance in that side orchard/garden is heavenly and the bees are enjoying it as much as or probably more than us. The fig tree even made a valiant attempt at a welcome with a few small green figs - poor neglected thing. Shy Hellebores hanging on to a wee bouquet of blooms seemed to be waiting for us to coo over them - we did. And our birds were back within the hour. It is good to be home!  

Tucked under the ferns and Chinese jasmine are these pretty little beauties- our hellebores

We've eaten well but homemade is sooo good.

The last 4 months have been rich to overflowing so we've come home wanting to live simply for a little while, not go out, use up what’s in the larder – there was no bread in the freezer so we made some and ‘muesli’ biscuits too. We want to simply appreciate the quiet of our little pad - and get over jet lag! It’s hard to explain but traveling into the remote parts of our planet brings home many realities of ‘urbanisation’ however you might define it - it’s good and bad at the same time ……. another time. And indeed until next time we head off ....

September 21-22 Anchorage to Seattle to Vancouver to Sydney to Melbourne

As I sit in the Seattle airport waiting to board a plane for Vancouver and the long trip home, I realise that it was only yesterday that we were in the sleepy village of Nome - it seems a lifetime, a world ago. The Northwest Passage is more remote than you could imagine. The hardships that the Inuit people experience living in the Canadian High Arctic is hard to imagine yet they are beautiful happy generous people. I will never forget them. 

Last  night was one of those interminable in-transit stops, something you have to bear for the pleasure of visiting magical places. 

A boxed reminder of a wilderness of which we have only had the slightest whiff 

My head is still in Nunangat and the Bering Strait, and filled with images of and fascination with the cultures and places I have encountered over the last month. Again to the beautiful people of the Canadian High Arctic I say ᓛᓂᓗ ilaanilu and ᖁᔭᓇᐃᓐᓂ quyanainni - goodbye and thank you.

September 21 tiny, remote, delightful Nome

 Fresh off the boat this morning, we were driven around Nome in a couple of those gorgeous yellow US school buses - a pretty bumpy ride but a bit of fun. Somebody had spotted musk ox so off we set - unsuccessfully. 

And the wheels of the bus go ...... man it was a bumpy ride

The Carrie M McLain Memorial Museum

We visited Nome’s Carrie M McLain Memorial Museum which has a wonderful and thought-provoking collection dedicated to preserving the cultures and history of Nome and the Bering Strait people. The King Islanders (remember those derelict structures on the island?) who now mostly live in Nome had created a beautiful installation nestled against a umiaq (skin boat). Come summer and open waters, they, and others from surrounding Bering Strait communities, would sail to the beaches of Nome to camp - up until the 1960s. While summering at Nome, families took on summer jobs, traded, gathered berries, and hunted for birds and fish. Back when King Island was inhabited, the Islanders would leave for Nome around June or July and head back in October. Each trip took around 14 hours nonstop in a skin boat. It is an excellent museum but we/I didn't have enough time to explore - they had to tip a few of us out.

A necklace of crab jawbone

Gold mining stuff

The King Islanders installation - seal skin foreground, Umiaq background.

The King Islanders' display was excellent and very well documented. An umiaq (skin boat) consists of a light driftwood frame over which a Bearded seal or Walrus hide cover was stretched. Traditional skin boats ranged from 20-50 feet in length and were measured by the number of skins required to cover the sides. An inflated sealskin float could be lashed to the bow for stability. They could be propelled by the current, dogs on the shore attached with lines, paddles, oars, or sails. So inventive.

A huge variety of housing styles

Dogs that participate in the Iditarod race.

Lovely dogs waiting to show off to us. These dogs live to run and participate in the Iditarod race. It’s world famous it seems. It’s a sled-dog race and evidently the Alaskan huskies are the best. The length of the race, 1049 miles, is symbolic of Alaska becoming the 49 state. People come from around the world with their dogs and also to just be involved. These dogs seem to live to race.

Nome and the gold rush

This guy gave us a go at panning for gold - great tourist 'thing'

Lindsay having a go.

I didn’t come up with gold but beautiful garnet ‘sand’
which glowed in the sun (the red stuff!)

Gold 'flour'

His gold ‘flour’ not ours. Sand collected along the 25 odd miles of beach are sifted through a sluice. Pretty impressive. He then melts it down. There a bit of silver amongst the gold.

Great repurposing - the Community Centre

The local community fed us lunch after we’d ‘engaged’ in some touristy things like meeting sled dogs and doing some gold panning. Gold is still a big thing up here - some of that involves ‘sifting’ through sands along the beaches and sea floor. It’s everywhere - they say! And of course we took a turn around the local trading store to check goods and prices - interesting. 

Interesting checking out what's on offer (and remember these are US$ and lbs not kg

Then we piled into local buses and were ferries out to the airport for the slow wait BUT eventually we were off away from the wildness and flying over the coast SE to Anchorage.

September 20 coming into land in Alaska

 

Our ships route around the Little Diomedes yesterday

Good morning peeps! Yesterday we were a mere 180m from Russia’s border with the US, this morning we’re pulling into Nome. What a sight! Last night, or rather in the wee hours of this morning, the clouds vanished and Aurora Borealis, ‘the lights’, turned on a gentle wavering panorama of soft swirling green. It was freezing out on deck (not properly dressed!)but worth it to see those magical patterns. The camera had trouble focusing (didn't help that a mandatory ship light was on over the next balcony) but .... we saw the lights!

Once in port and after lunch, some people went wandering into Nome, us? we strolled for a bit on the wharf/breakwater and Lindsay then wandered off to find birds – not very successfully it turned out. 

Days are shortening so we arrived in an orange glow

Tonight is our last night on board - sad, but what an awesome journey it has been. Last nights are always rotten. The crew are already preparing for the back-to-back trip, many passengers are feeling bereft, there's bar accounts to settle, last minute disembarking instructions, packing for early morning collection. Just sad. But good old Aurora had a lovely last day 'excursion' planned for us with the locals for tomorrow. 

Before we disembark finally in the morning, I want to say (in Inuktitut) ᐃᓛᓂᓗ ilaanilu and ᖁᔭᓇᐃᓐᓂ quyanainni to the beautiful people of the Canadian High Arctic. It has been an amazing voyage of a mighty 4659 nautical miles (8629 km) from Kangerlussuaq to Nome, an expedition extraordinaire 

The Complete Northwest Passage - our voyage map

September 19 The Diomedes and navigating through the Bering Strait

 

The voyage map is tracing our journey to the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait - the
whole purpose of the Northwest Passage explorations.

What an amazing day! Before dawn Captain Artem set a course south out of the Chukchi Sea (Arctic Ocean) through the Bering Strait into the Bering Sea (Pacific Ocean). We had completed the Northwest Passage hooray! but we’re still on board with a day to go. I'd like to restart the whole voyage again …..  Sunrise was at 8:45 so over breakfast we watched a chilly blue dawn struggle to claw its way over the horizon. And then we turned our heads and looming up on the other side was Little Diomede island.

The Diomedes islands. Vitus Bering sighted the Diomedes Islands off the coast of Alaska on 16 August 1728, the day when the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of Saint Diomedes - hence the name.

The cormorants came swooping around the ship peering down at us

It was a day of ‘doubles’. We sailed between two islands, two continents, two seas and oceans, two calendar days, two countries. The Diomedes is two islands - the Russian one on the west or 'Tomorrow Island' and the US one, the Little Diomedes or ‘Yesterday Island’, on the east - separated by just 4km (depending where they measure from). Between them runs the International Date line - tomorrow on the west and today on the east. We sailed between them! During winter, an ice bridge usually spans the distance between the two islands. So it is theoretically possible to travel between the two islands but it is forbidden.

A word of warning - there is going to be loads of pix here as it was quite an exciting day sailing into the Pacific Ocean between two continents etc etc 

Lindsay stretching into tomorrow!

Little Diomedes Island, US territory

The village on Little Diomedes. When counted in 2021 Little Diomede has a population of 82. The Green buildings are school and recreation centre. They reckon there’s only about 4 students at the school.

The forecast was for 7C so after 3 weeks of 'layering' I didn’t put thermals on. Big mistake because we spent a good part of the day out on deck. The chilling I got and the slightly scratchy throat the next morning was worth it however as the Strait’s islands we sailed to and around were breathtakingly beautiful - great granite monoliths thrusting up out of the sea.  The bird life was wonderful all around us.  Particularly cute were Tufted puffins and the Horned puffin. They fluttered above and passed us and formed flotillas on the sea close to the islands.

We sailed right around beautiful Little Diomedes which was sometimes shrouded in mist

Our Expedition Leader (L) and ship’s Captain (R). A powerful team who
stretched boundaries to give us the best experiences possible. Thank you !!

Fairway Rock

We sailed southward to Fairway Rock where we saw a gazillion birds and large haul-outs of Stella Sea lions. The location of the island was ‘documented’ by James Cook in 1778 and named by Frederick Beechey in 1826. However it has been known to the Inuit of the Bering Strait since prehistory. It’s a great nesting site for seabirds and the bird eggs have always been collected by local indigenous peoples.

A haul-out of a couple of dozen lazy Stella sea lions.

The colours were unbelievable. Like an abstract painting.

Fairway Rock - a glorious island

King Island

That afternoon still in the Bering Sea, we came upon King island. First identified by James Cook in 1778. Rounding a promontory we came upon the remains of a settlement made of walrus-skin dwellings lashed to the face of the cliffs. By 1970, all King Island people had moved to mainland Alaska year-round. Although the King Islanders have moved off the island, they have kept a very distinct cultural identity, and live a very similar life as they had on the island.

The remains of the settlement

Photos don’t capture the starkness of this place. It has been lashed by storms for centuries, millennia. The people who once lived here seemed to rely heavily on the walrus using their hides/skins for many things and even their intestines as waterproof covers in their kayaks (we saw similar things in eastern Siberia many years ago).

Stunningly beautiful- how many time can I say that?!

Zoom in for the village

Lindsay gazing north and south - no he's not Janus!

Sailing between many things and along the ‘Ice Curtain’

Top: due north. Nothing between us and the North Pole. Bottom: due south.
Nothing between here and the South Pole

Before dinner we had a bit of a Citizen Science summary which was good. I don’t have all the numbers, but we didn’t do too bad as amateurs and the five projects we were involved in sent off data to the scientists and data monitors. It was interesting that we were the first passenger ship to trial the app ‘eyesea’ which helps to identify and locate ocean, coastal, and waterway pollution. There is very little data on what and where marine pollution is so every little contribution makes a difference. We found 16 items and recovered them. Might not sound a lot so that’s encouraging. The ‘Secchi disk’ is also an interesting one. It measures the phytoplankton concentration in waters. This is extremely important as the phytoplankton produce about 50% of the world’s oxygen and also underpins the marine food web but concentrations seem to have reduced 40%. We managed readings at depths of 1-10.6m.  And then there were ‘Happy Whale’ which tracks the presence and movement of whales in the oceans of the entire world, plus the ‘globe Cloud’ and ‘eBird’ surveys. 

Our Citizen Science projects

We ended our day with stunning skies and the promise of Aurora Borealis making an appearance.