Patrons-only live tracking now online & overwintering plans! (Patreon)

Hello all! I've disabled the public live tracking for privacy reasons (we're now in a more populated area, etc.). However, live tracking is now available for patrons at this link: https://share.garmin.com/alluringarctic 

• The current password is: "patronsonly". If the password stops working at some point, check back here on Patreon or in your emails as I will be changing it every now and then!

• To view the entire track, click "View All Tracks" in the upper right corner (see screenshot). I did not track our position during some of the sailing along the Greenland coast, which is why there are a couple of gaps.

• Obviously, the tracking website and this password aren't very "secure".I hope you understand that, because we're now reaching a fairly large public audience, there could be some privacy issues and so on. Which means I might have to take down the tracking at some point!

And now for some news from aboard Lumi! Sohvi had to fly to Finland for work and she's of course also meeting family&friend.

While she's gone for around 3-4 weeks, I'm exploring the bays and fjords in the area and looking for a place to overwinter. As I mentioned in my previous post: "The plan is to let Lumi freeze into one of the remote bays here—somewhere with access to skiing and safe enough for the boat. We expect to spend 5-6 months in the ice!"

It's not easy to find a suitable spot. The problem for the boat's safety isn't so much the ice itself, but what happens when the ice breaks up. The breakup will occur at some point in the spring when the ice weakens, but it can also happen in early winter when the ice isn't yet strong enough, allowing gales to break it apart.

Some other things to consider are:

• The bay should be deep enough so that it doesn't freeze to the bottom.

• Be nice to to be able to run shore lines in all directions (anchoring is problematic because the anchor chain can get stuck in the ice). Issue with this is that there's often no suitable boulders to attach to etc.

• ... On the other hand the boat needs to be positioned far enough from the shore that it's not affected by the ice that moves and creates ridges with tide changes (the max tidal difference here is around 4 meters, 12 feet)

• Ideally, it should be open to the south to get sun during the long winter. Even a small hill to the south could mean an additional month or two without sun. We're at the Arctic Circle, so there will likely be a brief period of polar night regardless.

• Access to mountains/skiing.

• While we like to be remote, some access to a town (even via a long snowmobile ride) would be nice.

• Access to a fresh water stream or lake would be ideal. Streams can stay open late into winter, and even fetching water from a frozen lake is easier than melting snow.

Meeting all these criteria will probably be impossible, so we'll have to compromise...

In other news, after unfortunately destroying the expensive drone last month, I’ve now damaged my mini drone too! This mini can probably be fixed with some creative use of epoxy and Sikaflex. Thanks to your support, I'm looking at replacements that Sohvi can bring back to the boat. :)

(rest of the photos are from the town of Sisimiut and the area around it)

Have a great weekend, all!

Juho