Arctic Wandering... Past Updates

August 3, 2009

Last Thursday I arrived at the weather station on the south east side of Greenland. I was told that the winds were going to pick up the next day to 30 kts. so I decided to leave then for Iceland. I motor sailed that night and on Friday evening the wind started to increase (15-20 kts). We sailed through the night and at 4 AM woke to winds 25-30 kts. They were coming out of the NE, the direction I was going. So now My course was north. We were sailing along at 5.5-6.5 Kts. On one of my checks of the deck I found that the cap for the fuel tank was gone, which meant the tank now had salt water in it. I warped a wooden plug with syran wrap and pounded it in. I was now on a course back o the east coast of Greenland. I anchored at 9:30 Sat. night. On Sunday I drained the water out of the fuel tank and it's good to go. I've been told the weather will improve starting tomorrow, so I will leave for Iceland in the morning. I should have good weather for the next 6-7 days.

July 30, 2009

I'm just leaving the last town I will be visiting in Greenland, I will motor 50 mils through the fjords and tonight I will stay at a weather station at the end of Prins Christian Sound. There is ice just out side the sound but I shouldn't have any problems getting through it. Then leave for Iceland on Friday, It should take 6-10 days depending on weather. You can follow me on the tracker.

July 24, 2009

Well I'm on the Viking trail. Eric the Red came to Greenland around the year 1000. He settled in south Greenland, in Brattahlid. I spent the last two days exploring the ruins. and I got lots of pictures which will b posted in a special section. I motored across the fjord to an ex US air force base, Narssarssuaq. All of the ice reconenicense flights come from here so I will be talking with them to get the latest ice conditions around Cape Farvel. I will be going through the fjords to Prins Christian Sund, then across to Iceland. There is ice down there now but it will diminish in the next week hopefully. Tommorow I will go to Gadar which has a Cathedral. This was the Episcopal bishop's residence. Then on to other sights.

July 16, 2009

We left Nuuk yesterday at 12 noon after shopping and filling the water tank. Knud helped guide me into the small boat harbor as it is shallow and has lots of rocks.
I motored south for 30 miles and anchored at Polaroil terminal. Oil tankers from Denmark drop off their load of fuels here, and smaller tankers take loads farther
north to smaller towns. a small tanker docked about two hours after I anchored, they were 50-75 feet behind me. I left at 5:15 this morning. It was calm and overcast
The sun came out around 10 am. The rudder for the wind vane came off it's mount, so I had to haul it aboard. The wind picked up to 15- 20 kts. I had the main and
stay sail up. I finally anchored at 7:30. I remounted the rudder first then Dinner, Stew. I will sail 50 miles tomorrow to Paamiut. Pop. 1800.

July 13, 2009

I'm in Nuuk we arrived at 5am on last monday. I got the new sails and the new main has the wrong slides so I can't use it. Tomorrow I'll get fuel and finish last minute projects.
Tuesday I'll get water then leave. I will work my way down to the bottom of Greenland arriving the end of July. I will be visiting Erik the Reds home site which he selettled in the year 1000. Then through the Prins Christian Sund wich is a fiord wint 2-3 thousand foot walls, It is fantastic I've been told.

July 3, 2009

I left Itilleg at 5:15 this morning. It took about 3 hours to motor offshore then headed south. No wind overcast temp in the upper 30s. The autopilot steered all day
so I was in the cabin napping,and reading all day. I would poke my head out every hour to check for icebergs, ships, etc. I saw two burgs and tow ships heading north.
I arrived in Manitsoq at 10pm. We will leave for Nuuk around noon tomorrow as it's 100 miles and should take 20-24 hours. I want to arrive during the day as I don't know the harbor. I'm below the arctic circle so the sun is setting for about three hours.

July 2, 2009

I finally left Sisimiut yesterday at 11:30. The auto pilot did learn to steer the boat so I motored thirty miles south to a little village Itivdleg. Population 100.
I visited with one of the school teachers I met last year. It snowed two days ago and the temp is in the 30s. Tomorrow reporters are suppose to come here so I might stay
another day. The chart plotter is not getting GPS input so that and the radar stopped so I will work on those as it very foggy now. I will go to Manitsoq in a day or so
then onto Nuuk.

June 30, 2009

Sept. 19, 2008

I arrived in Sisimiut (Holsteinsborg) a few days ago, and have been getting the wind vane steering re bolted onto the stern and ran the iridium phone antenna into the boat properly as I had it going down the main hatch. The snow is falling and the storms are here so I've decided to leave the boat here for the winter. She will be pulled out of the water in the next couple of weeks. I will be fling home via Iceland as there are no flights to the U.S. or Canada. Finn who has been doing the repairs on the boat has a house that needs some roof work done so I will help him on Sunday. I will return in April or May next year and sail to Norway. I will be navigating as the Vikings did 1,000 years ago. I will be using the sun stone that I got from David Burch at Starpath in Seattle. I will also need to make a stand for it and a couple of other devices. I will be sending some pictures in the next couple of days from Pond Inlet Canada to here. Big icebergs the size of city blocks, whaling boats, and the towns I've been to.

Sept. 12, 2008

I arrived in Aasiaat yesterday afternoon. This morning I went over to the shipyard to see if they could weld the boom and they could and did.We also got the engine exhaust leak fixed and the propane to the stove. Things are looking up. I will spend tomorrow here as I want to fix a few more things.On the way over from the last town, I passed two boats that were fishing but it took me a couple of minutes to figure out for what. They were whaling, as one man was on the frontmanning the harpoon gun one was in the crows nest as lookout. I also saw some skiffs and they were hunting seals. You can buy both in the grocery stores. I'll have to eat in a restaurant to try them.

August 28, 2008

I left Devon Is. on the 25th and set a course for Navy Board Inlet. Around noon I was skirting the north end of ice that went south. Then around 4PM I had driven into the middle of a ice flow so I had to back track 10 miles then go north. I got to the top of it at 10pm then started east. I stoped to sleep at 11:30. Woke at 3am to thick fog. Its a good thing ice shows up on the radar, so I started east. I thought I would have to go to Greenland to get around the ice. Finally at 10:30 we broke out of it, then we headed south and arrived at Tay Bay at 8pm. Had a good nights rest then underway at 8am on the 27th for Ragged Island, to wait for the winds to come down so I can go into Pond Inlet to get fuel, water, ect. It looks like I'll go on Sunday. I'll spent the next couple of days working on projects that need to be fixed. I need some water and I will get it off an ice burg that is grounded in the cove I'm in, that should be my adventure for the day. When I leave Pond Inlet I plan on going down the coast to 200 miles to Clyde River to get some parts that will have arrived then cross over to Greenland. I'll go down Greenland then sail back to US. Maine will be my final stop. I need to go through the boat and check everything out. Three years in the cold arctic has been hard on the boat and this needs to be done before setting out on the next part of the journey. The Adventure continues.

August 21, 2008

I'm at Fort Ross which was a Hudson Bay Co. post it was abandoned in the 20s. there are still two buildings standing the polar bears have taken over on and the other is used bywho ever shows up. Its stocked with some food, water, stoves for heat and cooking, six bunks. this is a bad anchorage as it took 6 tries before I got the boat to stay.At two AM this morning I awoke to the sound of the wind howling, the boat was dragging with two anchors down and the skiff sunk off the stern.It took three frantic hoursBut all survived. I motored to a different island and ran the boat till I had 15ft under the bow and let the anchor go, it just didn't hold. tried again only closer to the beach and rocks. It held. that was 5:30 this morning, its still howling (30-40mph) and I'm still where I set the anchor 6hrs ago. The winds are supposed to calm down tomorrow.I'm going to head for Arctic Bay which should take 2 1/2 days. The winds are suppose to be light till Sunday then east 20 increasing to 25 Monday. The Adventure Continues.

August 2, 2008

Slowly things are getting done, I've spent the last couple of days grinding all the rust areas on top of the cabin and prepping, painting, she looks better. I think by next weekend I will be ready to head east. The ice is melting and by then I should be able to get through it with little problems. On Thursday at 11pm I went with some friends out to see the eclipse. We took four wheelers, drove out to Mt Pelly then headed across the tundra for 10-15 miles. We arrived at a 200ft hill to wait. I set my camera up. The sun was suppose to rise at 2:54AM. Well it rose but was obscured by clouds. We packed up at 4:45 and just as we were leaving it came out of the clouds. We got to see a blood red sun with a small portion of the moon on it. We did experience the darkness, it got dark then light over about 10 minutes.
Then back to town, it took us two hours to get there and one hour to get back. In all I had a blast. Till next update Bye to all.

July 25, 2008

Well I've been here a week now, arrived last Saturday and first thing it looked like a bomb had gone off in the boat
so I started getting the fuel jugs(12) out and two propane bottles out on to the deck which gave me enough room
to start the heater as the temp drops into the 30s at night, it was not working properly so not a lot of heat the first
night. first thing the next morning I found the pipe that feeds fuel into the bottom of the stove was clogged, once I
fixed that I produced plenty of heat. Next the engine, I started by removing the injectors and discovered that water
had gotten into the engine as they were full. I cranked the engine by hand to get it out put some oil into each cylinder
to set then started to remove the starter the first bolt came right out the second took a day and a half to get out.
New starter on and cranked the engine it turned over. Injectors back in and tried starting it with the decompression
levers off then turned one on , got smoke out the exhaust, a second one on, it was tiring to start, opened the two and
started with the one that had not been opened, then the next one, smoke and it was tiring to start, after 30 seconds
it was running on two cylinders so I tripped the third cylinder on and it came to life. I ran it for 5 minutes. That's my biggest
worry fixed. Over the next days I just cleaned and have had to throw out lots of food as its been through three winters
and books that had water damage. The electrical system needs work as electrolysis corded a lot of it. I should have things
ready to go in a week to ten days, the ice should be melted enough by then. I've enclosed the latest ice chart.

April 10, 2008

I got off the tug on March 5th and spent a couple of days with my son and his family, then drove north to Seattle. I had to get a new government document TWIX card (Transportation Workers Identification Card). Then to renew my Coast Guard license I got a physical, took a radar renewal class, then brought that all into the Coast Guard. I also found a travel company that helps people get a Russian visa, which can be difficult. I also had to reapply to get a Norwegian visa to spend next winter in Norway. Lots of paper work, getting passport pictures for the visas, and phone calls. It all got done and now it’s back to work on the tugs. I’ll be out plying the waters along the west coast till' mid June. Some new pictures of the boat buried under snow have been posted.

November 22, 2007

I’ve spent the last month and a half working on San Jose State Universities 133ft research vessel, Pt. Sur. I joined her in Seattle and after ten days we headed for Moss Landing, California. Over the next month we made several day trips out into Monterey Bay. The science consisted of towing various nets, getting bottom cores, Deploying and recovering science buoys. On Veterans Day I was invited to make a trip on Monterey Bay Aquarium’s vessel Pt. Lobos. They were going out to operate their Remotely Operated vehicle in Monterey Bay Canyon. This was very interesting as I have not observed an ROV before. I’m spending Thanksgiving with my son and his family in Sebastopol, Calif. Then I will be going back to work For Sause Bros, towing oil barges up and down the west coast.

Update September 25, 2007

Unfortunately Gary's window of opportunity was to short and he was not able to make it out of Cambridge Bay this year. Winter was setting in and His boat was icing up and he broke a fuel line. The Arctic Wanderer will be resting in Cambridge Bay for one more year. Hopefully next year someone at the Canadian Consulate will know something about weather and what happens to water in cold temperatures, in order to let Gary up there during the summer!!!

Update September 14, 2007

Well the last week has been hectic but things are coming together. Hopefully I'll be leaving Cambridge Bay Sat or Sun. The weather is cold (25-33 degrees). The engine is working good, all the electronics are working. The new batteries are on board but the old ones are working fine so I haven't hooked the new ones up. I'll send another update when I leave.

Update August 19, 2007

Progress was made last week, a new woman is working on my application and it is now in the hands of an immigration officer. Friday I was told they might make a decision in the next two weeks. That would leave very little time to make it out of Canadian waters but I could do it, last year it was open into October. Starpath school of Navigation donated a sun stone to me; it will be used to navigate from Greenland to Norway as the Vikings did 1000 years ago, I will be writing more on this later.

Update July 21, 2007

My hopes of getting back to the boat have been dashed, I went to the consulate on Thursday and the woman handling my application would not see me. So I don’t know if they will let me go back up. The ice has melted in the bay and the boat was floating a week ago. The cover has a rip in one side and the wind vane had come loose, Jim and Shelia were able to put it back up. Thanks to all in Cambridge Bay watching out for Arctic Wanderer. At this point I haven’t a clue as to when I will be allowed back up.

Update June 18,2007

The consulate called a week ago and said it would be a couple of more weeks before they would have an answer for me, so tomorrow I’m going back to work for two to three weeks. The weather in Cambridge Bay has been cold hovering at thirty-two degrees and is slowly rising the last couple of days. There is still snow on the ground although it will melt fast with higher temps. I’ve posted a couple of pictures of Susan who I am staying with and Yodo her cat that wakes me every morning between 4-6am by licking my face so I will feed her. Hopefully I’ll be back in Cambridge the second week in July.

Update May 27, 2007

Hello all, hopefully I will get permission to go back to Cambridge Bay next month. I’ve been working for Sause Bro. Towing the last four and a half months. They have a dozen tugs and I was on two of them towing oil barges up and down the west coast (Tacoma, Wash. To Los Angeles). I spent two weeks at my son’s house in Sebastopol Calif. My daughter had my 4th grandchild while I was there. I drove to Sacramento to house sit for my brother for another week then on to Oregon to visit with my 92yo father and my sisters. I’m currently in Seattle, Wash. awaiting word from the consulate on when I can go back to Cambridge Bay. They are waiting on info about the ice conditions. As soon as I hear anything I will post it.

Update Dec.19, 2006

I finally have a job working on tug Boats for a company out of Coos Bay, Oregon. I drive to Coos Bay today, then have two days of orientation and a Physical. Then on Thurs. I fly to Los Angles to meet the boat. From there I don’t know but I will keep the web site updated. I wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Update Dec 10, 2006-12-09

Time is slowly passing; I’ve received most of the documents that Canadian immigration requires. I will be talking with someone at the consulate tomorrow, as I have to be back in Cambridge bay in May. I’m worried if I can’t return then my boat will be vandalized as the kids in town start to stay out all night. Hopefully I have a job on tugs I should know in a week or so.

Update Nov 6, 2006-11-06

The beginning of Oct I sent my resume into UNOLS (University National Oceanographic Laboratory Systems) and within two hours got an email from the University of Oregon, they needed a temporary second mate on their research vessel the Wecoma. So by weeks end I was jetting south to Newport Oregon. I spent aprox. 3 weeks onboard making two trips underway. We recovered three moorings and buoys. My sister Judy and her family came to visit which was great, as I haven’t seen her in a couple of years. I left Newport on Oct 31 drove to Portland to spend a couple of days with my 91 year old father, who last summer drove to Sacramento Calif and back, he’s doing great. And also saw my other sister Cathy and her family. Left Portland on Nov 3rd flew to Seattle then Edmonton in Canada where I ran into a brick wall. Immigration would not let me into the country as I had been living there illegally for the last year and a half and I had a DUI in 1986. So I had to go back to Seattle to deal with this problem their. I’m Staying with my friend Susan who got the boat to Alaska when I bought it. I might be here for up to six months. If this is the case I’ll find work and take some photo classes, and lecture if there is an interest.

Update Sept.10, 2006

I recived the last two engine parts and my deadline for leaving is here, so I’ll be spending another winter in Cambridge Bay. This will give me a chance to build my funds back up as the engine ate up a lot. And I don’t want to cross the north Atlantic after Oct 1 as the storms increase. Many people are glad I’m staying as they need me to house and dog sit when thy go on holiday. Two Polish sailboats were here the Nekton and The Stary. They are headed to Alaska. I’ve gotten some work painting the Arctic Collage buildings, I just finished one and start on the second one tomorrow. The weather is cooling down a couple of days ago I was painting in a snow squall, that’s right in a snow squall. The temps are in the low thirties to upper twenties at night. Last year the bay froze the end of September. Two cruise ships stoped here a last month. Four barges stoped and offloaded fuel, and supplies that are needed for the winter. I have to get Arctic Wanderer ready for another fridged winter.

Aug. 15, 2006

I got the engine to run but it won’t idle. Last Sunday the mechanic from town came down. We worked on it for six hours and it won’t run. I’m checking the compression today to rule out low compression. If its ok then the new fuel injection pump might not be working properly. I have until Sept 1st to fix it. I won’t leave after that as winter is setting in and the sea could start to freeze. I’m better off in Cambridge Bay than stuck in a bay in the middle of no ware. I’ll send updates every few days until then.

Update Aug 9, 2006

The ice has cleared all along the Boothia Peninsula to Bellot Strait. Peel sound still has a lot of ice in it. I received the engine parts and the new fuel filter. I’m having trouble bleeding the fuel system. I loaded one hundred ninety gallons of fuel yesterday and installed the fuel filters. Hopefully will get the engine running today. I’m planning on leaving this weekend if all goes well. The temperature is suppose to hit seventy-five degrees today, which is very hot, for the north.

Copyright © 2005-10 Gary E Ramos All Rights Reserved