YachtTeleport.com

So we've sailed up the beautiful west coast of Newfoundland, through the fog, icebergs, whales and dolphins of the Strait of Belle Island, around the top Northern tip and we're now here in St. Anthony on the North East corner of Newfoundland, ready to sail to Greenland - an epic 8-ish day crossing. The weather charts of late have been filled with low pressure system after savage low pressure system, creating winds of 45Kn+ (90km/hr+), but a perfect weather window has finally opened showing perhaps nothing serious at least for six or seven days, so last night we we refuelled with diesel (we had to order a tanker truck to drive down to the public wharf and fill us up!), we filled up our 200L water tank, strapped everything down, and as a last taste of civilisation, we were lucky enough to be invited aboard the awesome Canadian Coast Guard / Search & Rescue ship HARP (where after a guided tour, the chef then promptly served us a generous roast dinner followed by ice-cream), followed by a steaming hot shower in their building on shore! Reassuringly, these guys told us we seemed very well prepared for the voyage ahead.

Smiling, we returned to Teleport, only to find large amounts of water sloshing about in the bilge! Scoping some up I hastily tasted it, and ignoring the hint of diesel, oil and other scum that always accumulates in a yacht's bilge, I was pleased to detect that the water was not salt water. So the good news was we weren't sinking, but the bad news was there must be a leak somewhere in our 200L drinking water tank! Damnit! Just what we don't need right now!!! So after tightening all the hose fittings hoping that may have been the culprit, water continued to flow out, and so we had to empty and heave the entire flexible tank out and up onto the wharf, and slice open the 'protective' canvas outer cover and pull out the internal vinyl bladder. Amazingly, it had at least three sizeable puncture holes/tears in it - yet there was not even a scratch on the protective canvas cover, and we could find nothing sharp where the bag rested - more confusingly still, the holes were on the top of the bladder where there wouldn't have even been much force/pressure. I should point out that this tank is something we bought brand new last season from a local marine shop in Halifax, and is nothing like the bullet-proof flexible fuel and water tanks we have from Turtle-pac which have already been through hell on deck etc and are still 100% as-new. This other pathetic water bag thing we have seems to be criss-crossed with stressed crease corners and folds, all threatening to tear through at a moment's notice. We have a 50L Turtle-pac flexible tank with our reserve water in it stored in our bow which would certainly see us to Greenland, but it's not hooked up to our foot water-pump in the galley etc, and it's been rather nice not having to be on strict water rations. Nothing we could find or think of seemed to want to stick to the glossy, slippery vinyl plastic, not even the Coast Guard's inflatable dingy repair kit. In the end, we opted for good ol Duct Tape, and amazingly, it seemed to hold up under pressure. So very late last night - after midnight - we reinstalled the patched bladder, filled her back up, and went to sleep, dog tired, still hoping to escape in the morning to Greenland…

Well as we feared, the morning rose with the water level in the bilge, and this morning I tracked down another hole in the bladder. This one I have also patched, and *fingers crossed* maybe it's the last one, and when we get back aboard after sending this and our video update, *hopefully* there won't be any more water in the bilge. Unfortunately, even if she's water-tight, we can't really leave today anyway, because the first 50 miles out from St. Anthony here is filled with icebergs (and their associated, smaller but more dangerous 'growler' chunks bobbing around them), and we wish to do this section in broad daylight to help us see and avoid them - requiring us to leave at first light and maximise our daylight time to get through the worst of it before the harrowing night-sailing with torches through (less crowded) berg-teritory commences. So I guess it'll be first thing tomorrow we'll leave? Already I can see another low pressure system perhaps 6 or 7 days to the west of us now, and so it'll be a bit of a race across to Greenland, but we can't afford the time to wait for this (and whatever systems are likely behind it, too) to pass, because the season up here is ticking past. It still appears to be a reasonable weather window for tomorrow.

Filling you in since the last update, we really enjoyed our day in 'Little Port', walking up a bit of a hiking trail to the lighthouse overlooking the… banks of fog, and just as we were walking back from the village, someone called out "Are you the two from the Australian yacht?" We nodded. "Come in and have some soup!" How's THAT for Newfoundland friendliness! It turned out to be Moose soup (really!) and was excellent followed by coffee, freshly baked biscuits and cinnamon scrolly muffins, and more. "Do you want a loaf of bread too?" No thanks, we still have some onboard. "Oh come on, you need some bread, what about when you run out?" Jess cooks excellent bread in the pressure cooker! "Don't be silly. Here, take it." No, really, thanks but we.. "Here you go." It was excellent bread and lasted us several days up the coast =) As we sailed out, this lovely couple actually walked all the way out to the headland to see us off, waving until they had vanished behind us in the fog. It was like leaving a family!

As we crossed the invisible line on our ice chart showing we'd now entered the zone where there be icebergs, we decided that while we can at least, we may as well only sail during the day, and pull into the nearest harbour come 8:30-9PM each night when the sun goes down. So we've had lovely brief stop overs in several little fishing villages along the way, each time usually fielding a barrage of interested questions from as many as seven or eight locals who line up on the wharf beside Teleport the moment we dock. In 'Port Saunders' we got a lift into town and both reluctantly splurged on a huge neoprene insulated drysuit / survival suit that the locals and officials swear by (we have drysuits onboard already, but they are not insulated, and more easily torn etc - designed more for arctic kayaking etc). On the way to our next stop 'Flowers Cove' - after a few false-alarms passing white plastic bags that looked like ice - we passed our first iceberg! Perhaps 15-20m tall. (Officially, an Iceberg is 10m or higher, a 'berg-bit' is less than 5m tall, and a 'growler' is less than 1m tall). The following day we woke early and did the long, exposed last dash up the strait and around the corner, deciding to pull into a little harbour called Quirpon at the base of the last big northerly headland of NFLD which is actually an island with a very narrow, shallow channel separating it from the mainland. So after loitering around and waiting for high tide and dead calm wind, we gingerly motored slowly through and anchored on the other side for the night, saving us the long, icy, exposed route around the headland. From there it was a short 3 or 4 hour sail down here to St. Anthony, past another berg and a bergy-bit, where we've been prepping for the passage ahead. I bought strips of Aluminium and prepared a sail batten repair kit incase one of those big log wooden struts/battens that give our sail it's shape happened to break, and also a big, strong, flexible plastic 'FOR RENT' sign (and some other sheet metal) which I can almost envisage my smearing with my underwater quick-set sealant, donning drysuit and pressing this as a patch against the hull should we be unlucky enough as to meet a growler at speed. What you prepare for never happens, right? Right?

So that's about it from us, sit back and enjoy this awesome video update that Jess and I have just finished editing together! It's got some great footage in it - we've been having fun putting our GoPro cameras in all sorts of crazy places, like underwater on the end of our Ice-pole etc. (You'll have to watch the video to find out what an ice-pole is.)

You may see our tracker line head outside the harbour briefly today, as we intend to nip out to take some photos of a particularly beautiful grounded iceberg 5 miles offshore here, before returning to port, checking how the water bladder held up, and getting a good nights sleep ready *hopefully* to push off ASAP tomorrow morning.

Sorry for the non high-definition version of the video, we have spent hours wandering around trying to find fast enough internet to upload it at full quality, and failed. Even this standard defn has taken 2 hours+.

Thanks for all your messages everyone =)

All the best,

Chris and Jess.



If you can not see the video embedded above, then you can see it HERE on YouTube.