New location, new try (Patreon)

Hi! OK we've now arrived to a new spot to try this overwintering in the ice thing. This time we ran shore lines and are much more snug in here. I scouted this location in October when I was searching for suitable spots (Sohvi was in Finland), the special thing about this bay is that there are very good anchoring points (large boulders) on the shore.

This feels painful for me to say and I rather not think about it too much, because this was expensive, but we are using OVER 900 METERS OF LINE for this whole setup. That is 3000 feet. We bought 3 more coils of polypropylene line in Sisimiut. Counting the previous shore lines we had, we now have 4 full coils of polyprop in use, each coil is 220 meters. We are also using all of our normal mooring lines (tied around the boulders as backups etc).

The next few days we will be reinforcing our anchoring points on the shore. The main potential issue is the lines chafing. So we're setting some backups, I've spliced around 20 eye splices in the last couple days and my hands hurt... We're also using couple lengths of the extra chain that we have around the sharpest rocks.

The bottom is plenty deep, around 4 meters at low tide where we are, but the water is so clear that you can see it. We will be adjusting the lines a bit so we'll be a bit closer to the center of the bay.

Lots of other things to do as well, we're making a shore depot with our extra fuel and emergency gear etc. We've already winterized the engine and water systems on board.

This bay freezes later than the one we were in earlier. We're not sure when. Based on satellite imagery archives, we know that the past 7 years this spot has always been frozen in February and thawed around May or early June. But there is no imagery from December to January because there's not enough light for the satellite to take pictures... So we're not sure when to expect the ice to really form. (There's probably some historical SAR satellite imagery but I have not found a good source). The freezing comes down to local weather, if we get a cold clear spell then the ice can form very quickly.

We're also doing things inside the boat, like partitioning off the bow section of the boat. We will be sleeping in the main cabin to save heating fuel and to keep a bit cozier ;) Will give you an update about those things a bit later!

We're planning a patrons live stream soon so keep an eye out on the Patreon notifications! Thanks for the support and stay warm ;)

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