A Note of Review

Sam’s Log: August 26th, 2025

After 5 weeks and two days, (375 hours running time by the engines hour meter, starting at Nuuk, Greenland), we have just dropped two of our Northwest Passage Crew off at the small town of ‘Utqiagvik’ (formerly known as Barrow), Alaska.  Bill had to return to work in Washington, D.C. and gets to see our National Guard (now armed by the way) at their finest.  Jon wanted to return to his home in Anacortes and avoid the two big events that still lie ahead of us, the Bering Sea, and the Gulf of Alaska.  Both of those bodies of waters have a reputation for nastiness that evoke the up-chuck response of anyone without a steel belly, and it seems that Jon is one of those poor souls afflicted with that curse. 

So here we are, down in crew to me, Mario, and Scott the ‘Sarah Sarah’s’ owner, our fearless Captain.  There is a small feeling of loss around the boat, loss of the necessity of staking out a seat and not ever moving from that seat because if you do it’s no doubt going to be re-staked by another of the crew in a crowded Pilothouse.  There is also a feeling of being somehow left in a candy store without clerks and you can pull anything off the shelf and eat it at whim, without being watched, and without being charged.  The best explanation for this later feeling is the careful attempts at inventory of the ‘Sarah Sarah’ of all food stuffs and sundry items.  Pick up an apple and crunch into it and if within seconds you don’t close eye contact with either Jon or Bill and make sure they took that darn apple off the inventory list, you will get the evil eye and some crack criticism.  Heaven, forbid you finish the bag of potato chips or use up the last of the toilet paper without announcing loudly, “take one bag of chips off the list” or “I just used a roll of toilet paper aft”.  Mind you there never was a rule of not being able to eat anything or whatever you want at any time, you just plainly need to announce that you have, and make sure it is marked off the master  inventory list as we all know there is high potential for starvation and ultimately cannibalism on any proper Northwest Passage trip. 

Do I have any feelings or fears that the three of us will have issues handling the boat properly, no I don’t.  This trip across the top of the America’s needed good crew to handle it and still has a good enough crew to handle it for the balance of the trip.  Mind you, I will miss Jon and Bill. Other small changes to the ship’s routine are that we now switch to 4-hour watches over the night period, up an hour from the 3-hour watches of the 5-person crew. There is now no need for hot-bunking during overnight runs.  With the 5 of us and only three bunk areas, there was the necessity of the person that came on watch giving up his warm bunk to the person coming off watch.  We also end the weekly rotation of the aft crew Mario, Jon and me rotating our bunking areas from Shangri-La (the largest of the aft bunking areas) to the Quarter Berth, and finally to sleeping in the main salon.  We typically rotate on Sunday and as we were at sea I hot bunked the Quarter Berth cabin yesterday and will stay in that bunk till next Sunday when Mario and I switch and I get the Shangri-La bunk.  Scott stays up in the focsle with his ensuite head and shower, whilst Mario and I share a head aft.  I shower on the stern outside, wearing a life jacket while we are at sea, the rule is all deck activity while the boat is moving requires life jackets and a watch person aware that we are on deck.  Mario chooses to shower up forward in the focsle when Scott is up on watch.  I hate showering in a boat, it introduces too much humidity and is always hard to dry out, so I choose to stand in the cold on the swim step naked as a jay bird, my life jacket on, quickly soaping and rinsing but feeling oh so invigorated with the cold and the clean body.  Galley duties won’t change much, Mario and Scott being the major cooks, and I am on the mop-up crew doing dishes after the preparation of the meal.  When at sea we eat almost always from pre-canned meals that Scott and his fiancé Stacy had prepared before the trip.  For a voyage of this magnitude, it’s perfectly amazing that there are (and still remain) more than 100-quart sized ball glass jars, stored carefully in the bilge and we have not broken even one.  All filled with delicious food that we serve usually with rice or pasta as a compliment.  Fresh bread is baked every other day and is always appreciated.  When we are at anchor the barbecue on the aft deck can be used and we have Chicken (thighs and drumsticks being the cuts of choice), Arctic Char steaks (in the salmon family and tasting like white chinook steaks) that we bought in Cambridge Bay and every once in a while actual Beef steaks bought somewhere in North Carolina when the boat was being brought up the coast to Portland, Maine where I joined the boat.  Pasta with meat sauce is also served often and being easy to prepare at sea even with the motion of the boat.  Our cooking is all electric induction, this being my first exposure to that method.  It works well, avoids chasing around these small towns trying to buy propane, and it is a breeze to clean up, the surfaces being flat glass.    

That sums it up, we have another 50 plus hours running time to Nome, and will no doubt quickly become a 3-person, well-oiled machine of seamanship.  Now we just need the weather to cooperate and the ice to stay well north of us for the next few days and we will be through the toughest parts of the Passage.