Well another year has passed and It’s hard to beleave I’ve been on this expedition for four years. When I started, I thought it would take between three to five years. As John Lennon said, “life happens when you’re making other plans.”  In looking back, the experience has  exceeded all my expectations. When I left Alaska I felt I was going on another sail for a week, and it’s turned into a fantastic adventure. Of course as Villmar Steffansson said “if you have had an adventure you’ve made a mistake”. Well I’ve had many adventures along the way, but I’ve tried to learn from all of them.
                 I flew back to Seattle in October and started looking for work, but more importantly started the application for Russia to get permissions to sail their North East Passage. This has been a long hard process, as there are no guidelines. I was able to get the information I needed from Alex of Berrimilla II who sailed the North West Passage in 2008. I finally finished the application with a lot of editing help from my friend Caryn in Boston. But it wasn’t quite done.  I had to get an Apostille letter from the State of Washingtion, get it translated into Russian, go to the Russian Consulate to get it certified and then I will make three copies in english and Russian and mail all eight copies to the Russian Tourism office in Moscow.   Then it’s wait, wait and wait some more. I don’t expect to get an answer for a few months.   Stay tuned for the next installment.