August 6, at 6:30 p.m. we motored off the dock at Cambridge Bay and made our way to Gjoa Haven. The weather was perfect for our shakedown sail – clear skies with winds at about 15 knots on our tail, and forecast to remain so for 36 hours. The ice was not completely clear from our route, but was sufficiently thawed for us to be able to contemplate getting all the way through.
During the first few hours aboard, Jesse shows me the boat under sail. We raise the main, and the jib for a while, and make steady progress under sail out of Cambridge Bay and into the Queen Maud Gulf. (Queen Maud, former queen of Norway, had this particular body of water named in her honour due to Roald Amundsen. Amundsen, a Norwegian, was the first to go through the Northwest Passage in 1905.) We fire up all…