Port Clarence harbor, AK
After a week of continuous charging, and warmer temperatures in the cabin due to motoring for a few hours (re-anchoring) and a warm front passing, the Iridium phone is working again. As you know from following the comments on earlier entries, the Iridium phone battery died shortly after we left Ulukhaktok (Holman). That was the spare battery, the original also did not work. These batteries are what those that don’t rely on them call “smart batteries”, as they have monitoring and charging circuits built in and are specialty items not widely available. Attempts to supplement the failed spare battery with external batteries wired into it were not successful. While it is great to have email again, I’m not sure how long the phone will continue to work, so please don’t be surprised if the blog stops suddenly again. Thanks for all the comments! Glad to see the messages sent by Inuvik Coast Guard Radio and Barrow Comm Center were received and posted. We had strong northerly winds taking us down the Chukchi sea and through the Bering Strait. We left the Bering Strait on Sept 8 at 2000 UTC. With a southerly gale in the forecast, we went into Port Clarence (a well-protected harbor, about 10 miles in diameter, site of an old LORAN station, nearby towns of Teller and Brevig Mission) and anchored. We’ve had one southerly gale after another since then. The main anchor (Raya) was holding well enough on the third try where we first anchored (with better protection from SW), it held well at first where we next anchored (with better protection from the expected SE winds that were coming), but when the wind picked up in the middle of the night, we were soon dragging the anchor along the bottom at two knots. We reanchored several times, closer to the windward beach in 4m of water, never getting a really good hold, and added the ondeck Fortress anchor as well. As there are three of us aboard, doing anchor watches is not hard, we are just all pretty much staying dressed and ready to reanchor at all times. I have a bunch of blog posts that I’ve not been able to put up. If the phone continues to work, or when we reach port (we are just anchored in the harbor, we are not near Teller or Brevig Mission at present), I’ll post them. These older posts will appear below this one, so please scroll down to see them.