Mario’s Log: September 19th, 2025 It’s time to stop kidding ourselves. We’re really coming down to it now. A couple of nights ago, as Scott and I discussed the plan for the route to Anacortes, five days was our best guess at how long it would take. “We could make it in three from here if we wanted,” he said. We didn’t want to. Sitting here at anchor in...
Stacy in one of her …sweeter moments. Mario’s Log – September 12th, 2025 All I said was something I’d been saying for two-plus months on this trip. “Get out of my galley.” Spending as much time as I did, preparing almost every breakfast and half of ever other meal for previous crew on this voyage, I had developed a sense of ownership of this little...
The helm station aboard the M/V Sarah-Sarah – September 5th: 0001 Mario’s Log: September 5th, 2025 It feels like a lot longer. Back in March of this year, on a shakedown cruise (of me) with Scott, Jon, and Ivy from St. Thomas to Marathon, I stood my first midwatch aboard Sarah-Sarah. It was a job interview, really. A look see; Scott and Jon trying to...
Water over the bow – INSIDE the entrance to False Pass after escaping a 70 mile run from 14 footers in the Bering. Mario Log: September 1st, 2025 Current ripped out of False Pass into the Bering, laying channel markers on their sides, straining at their chains. Storm winds sent a six-foot chop into our bow, pushing green water so often across the deck that it...
Crew Jon Herman and Sam Devlin – Point Pearce. 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...
When I tell the stories of the travels of my life, it must sound to my friends like I’ve been working my way through a bucket list of planned adventures. This Northwest Passage is certainly on the list of a lot of boaters in my circle. If you have such a list, you wouldn’t be wrong to add a trip through the arctic and then do your best to check it off. But I don’t...
August 21, 2025 – Sarah-Sarah heads for an ice field that can only be avoided by turning back. Mario’s Log: 22 August 2025 Everything was going fine and none of us saw anything in the window that bothered us. Then the sound of a ton of ice slamming the hull rang out and the boat shook. We had had hit a clear-as-glass chunk of ice the size of a...
Satellite photo of our exit from the Northwest Passage, taken August 15th. The white is all ice; not a cloud in the sky. Mario’s Log – August 15th, 2025 Many of my friends following this trip have expressed everything from concern to mild panic as we post images of wide open sounds, glassy fjords, and clear running seas completely free from any ice as we...
Sunrise from Sarah-Sarah as we leave Gjoa Haven. Sam’s Log: August 12th, 2025 The Sarah-Sarah is anchored up in a small bay just to the southeast of the town of Upernavik. By many descriptions of other boats that have attempted trips through the Northwest Passage this is one of the final staging areas that most use while waiting for weather and ice to cooperate...
Sarah-Sarah surprises twenty-two Atlantic Walrus, just minding their own business on a gravel beach in Blanley Bay, Devon Island, Nunavut – August 2nd, 2025 Mario’s Log: August 9th, 2025 The vessel approached the turn into the back side of Blanley Bay. I was distracted by the glacier, crystalline white and sparkling as the sun rolled down it’s face...