In temperate latitudes, sailing traditionally has a season: summer. When the leaves start to fall and frost starts to form, sailors typically go about storing their boats for the winter. In places where the harbor freezes hard, this means hauling out of the water. In New England, yacht clubs and boatyards haul their floating docks out of the water too. All this makes sense, of course: No one wants ice to damage their boats and docks. But if you live somewhere just mild enough that the harbor might not freeze over—or even if you would just like to extend your sailing season as long as possible before your harbor does freeze—it’s quite possible to sail comfortably in the cold months. And if you’re up for adventure, there’s some remote and ­challenging ­cruising to be had in the coldest regions of the world.

My husband, Seth, and I have had a decent amount of practice sailing in less-than-ideal temperatures: an unusually severe winter that we spent living aboard our 40-foot cold-molded wooden cutter, Celeste, in the Pacific Northwest; high-latitude voyages to the Arctic and Alaska; and, our introduction to offshore sailing and first exposure to cold-weather sailing, a voyage from Maine to North Carolina in December in a boat without heat or insulation. On all of these voyages, we’ve found that the key to enjoying cold-weather sailing is to prepare adequately, both in terms of safety and comfort.

Note that there are certain items and practices that are common to all latitudes and seasons, including having proper lifesaving equipment on board such as life jackets and harnesses and reliable bilge pumps, and preparedness in personal safety skills such as man-overboard drills. I won’t go into the basics of offshore safety, but here are some tips unique to sailing and living aboard in the cold.

Clothing

There’s an often-quoted saying attributed to a host of different cold-weather places: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.” As smug as it is, it’s also true. With the right clothing, cold and wet weather can be tolerated and even enjoyed. Even with all the advances of our technological age, wool remains the best insulator: My cold-weather-sailing wardrobe consists of layers of wool long underwear, wool sweaters, wool socks, wool gloves and wool hats. The great advantage of wool is that it will keep you moderately warm even if it gets wet. Obviously, you won’t be as warm as you are when you’re dry, but your wool clothing will not sap the warmth from your body in the way that cotton does. Down is also a superb insulator—and synthetic downs have improved tremendously—but down needs to stay dry in order to work. Which brings us to waterproof clothing to keep out the wet.

Foul-weather gear is a great example of how modern technology has enormously improved our options. All the major brands produce superb—albeit pricey—jackets and bibs, trousers, and salopettes. Gore-Tex was one of the first waterproof-yet-breathable fabrics, and now many of the brands have proprietary equivalents. These all seem to work very well, especially the top-of-the-line models. My current kit includes the top-end Helly Hansen Aegir jacket, which has kept me warm and dry for over 20,000 miles. The Aegir jacket’s effectiveness is also thanks to its good fit for a woman: When I first started sailing offshore, women’s bluewater clothing options were all so boxy and bulky that they often didn’t keep the wind out very well. I’ve found that my top-of-the-line jackets, regardless of brand, have generally held up better than the less-expensive coastal jackets I’ve had. My experience has been that no matter what the brand—Seth and I have used Musto, Henri Lloyd and Gill, as well as Helly Hansen—the waterproofing does eventually decline with age and use. For the top-end line, that tends to take about 30,000 miles of ocean sailing. I’ve found that the coastal models, when worn as offshore foul-weather gear, tend to hold up for about 10,000 miles.

Once you’ve settled on your base layers and foul-weather gear, make a plan to protect two other important parts: hands and feet. Hands are tricky, because you need to retain dexterity for reefing, trimming sails, steering and a host of other tasks. I haven’t found one good solution yet, so I use a bunch of different gloves and mittens. For hauling up the anchor, for example, Seth and I use insulated rubber fishermen’s gloves. For simple steering, or for long hours on watch without many tasks to perform, well-insulated waterproof mittens are in order. For tasks requiring a lot of fine motor skills in a short amount of time, I have yet to find anything better than unlined fingerless wool gloves. They can easily get wet when you’re on deck near the mast, reefing down, so I keep several pairs on board and always have a dry pair ready.

Feet are easier. There are lots of options for ­waterproof boots, and one’s choice just depends on personal preference. Mine is for neoprene insulated rubber boots such as XtraTuffs; Seth’s preference is for simple boots without insulation so that he can regulate the warmth with wool socks. Others prefer Gore-Tex-type boots such as Dubarrys. As long as your feet stay warm and dry, you’ve found a solution.

Warm Cabin

Having a warm place to retreat to when you come off watch makes a huge difference to crew morale—and also, ­potentially, to safety. Being constantly cold saps you of energy and can lead to lethargy and poor decision-making. Everyone gets better rest if they are warm, and this will improve both the safety and enjoyment of the cruise. The first step to this is easy and can be accomplished in any boat, provided the boat doesn’t leak: a warm, dry sleeping bag. Seth and I have three bags—a down one rated to 0°F and two synthetic-down bags rated to 20°F—as well as a heap of thick, felted wool blankets.

Of course it’s better to have options in addition to your sleeping bag. If you have the electrical storage or generating capacity, one of the best heating options is a forced-air heater like an Espar. These use diesel to make heat, and then use electricity to pump the warm air through ducts and vents throughout the cabin. Our heater can get Celeste up to a comfortable temperature in only about 15 minutes. However, it does use a significant amount of power, and so we also have a gravity-fed diesel heater. Ours is a Danish Refleks stove; Dickinson also makes these. They use no electricity and put out a really good amount of heat. They dry out the cabin nicely, and some models are built so that you can cook on top of them. If you are motoring a lot, it also makes sense to install a little bus heater that uses the engine’s heat exchanger and a little radiator to warm the cabin.

Hot Meals

A good way to warm up and have renewed energy is to eat something hot. Normally Seth and I cook regular meals in our galley; we often have hot meals three times a day. When the weather gets really unpleasant, however, the way we accomplish this is to heat up something easy. This might be a can of soup, or a jar of a homemade chili or stew that I prepare and then preserve in my pressure canner before passages. If conditions are really rough, we eat camping meals into which you need only to pour boiling water and wait 10 minutes. Our favorite quick meals are AlpineAire meals—there’s a lot of variety to the meals, and they’re all quite nutritious. A mug of hot chocolate or a thermos of tea or coffee is also great to sip on during a cold night watch.

Safety

The stakes are higher when sailing in cold weather or high latitudes than they are in warm conditions, so it’s a good idea to take extra safety precautions. Again, I’m not going to get into things such as jacklines and life rafts and radios, which are good ideas in all conditions. But there are a couple of things that make good additions to your boat’s safety kit in the high latitudes. Survival suits for each crewmember is one such addition. The US Coast Guard requires commercial-fishing vessels to carry these in waters north of 32°N on both Atlantic and Pacific coasts, which is about the latitude of San Diego, California, and Savannah, Georgia. San Diego typically has water temperatures of about 60 degrees, which can lead to hypothermia quicker than you think. In 50-to-60-degree water, one’s expected survival time is between one and six hours. Immersion suits sound like a pretty good idea, even if you have an insulated, covered life raft.

Prevention is always better than a cure, however, so to my mind, safety starts with deciding whether put out to sea at all. And once at sea, the ability to receive good weather forecasts is crucial. For our voyage to the Arctic, Seth and I equipped Celeste with an Iridium satellite phone and OCENS Sidekick router, through which we could receive weather charts and sea-ice charts from OCENSWeatherNet. This enabled us to plan our passages even when we were anchored in remote places where there was no internet or phone connection. Once underway, we were able to keep track of any adverse weather developing and act accordingly. We changed our routes several times thanks to the information we received: ducking in behind protective headlands when gale-force headwinds were predicted; heaving to and battening down the hatches when a strong gale blew up against us in the middle of the Bering Sea; and staying an extra couple of days in one port when it was clear that wind and current would be setting strongly against us.

RELATED: Birdwatching by Sailboat in Alaska’s Northern Waters

Regarding the boat itself, it’s good to be sure that your vessel is up to the conditions in which you’ll be sailing. You can go for pleasant winter daysails in any boat; indeed, “frostbiting”—racing dinghies in winter—is quite popular in New England. For extended voyages in the cold and harsh conditions of the high latitudes, however, you’ll want to be sure that your boat has certain attributes. It needs to sail well to windward and therefore have a chance to claw its way off a lee shore, should that terrible situation come to pass. It needs to have a very strong hull if you’re taking it into ice. It should preferably have an insulated cabin to retain heat, and it needs to be free of leaks. Nothing turns an enjoyable voyage into a misery like a cold, persistent leak over a bunk.

Finally, it’s essential to have a good crew for cold-weather sailing. Because the conditions are so much more demanding than they are for summer or tropical sailing, it’s even more essential that the crew get along well with each other and work happily together. Indeed, a positive outlook is perhaps the biggest key ingredient to a successful cold-weather voyage.

Then again, there’s always the option to head south. Antigua, anyone?

Writer and photographer Ellen Massey Leonard has sailed nearly 60,000 miles on rudimentary classic boats, including a circumnavigation via the Cape of Good Hope, a voyage to the Alaskan Arctic, and three crossings of the Pacific. She and her husband, Seth, were the 2018 recipients of the Cruising Club of America’s ­prestigious Young Voyager Award.

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Ginger and Peter Niemann were recently awarded the 2021 Blue Water Medal by the Cruising Club of America for their inspirational efforts and achievements during two sailing circumnavigations. Their circumnavigations took them to the Arctic’s northern latitudes and Patagonia’s southern latitudes; their second trip around the world included several rigorous, non-stop passages due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

The Niemanns’ first voyaging boat was Marcy, a 47-foot sloop they converted from a schooner. From 2006 to 2010, Marcy took them west-about from Seattle almost 50,000 miles around the world, including rounding the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn.

In 2017, they departed Washington State on Irene, a 52-foot fiberglass ketch. Taking the opposite direction, east-about, through the Northwest Passage and staying in the northern hemisphere, they never crossed their first circumnavigation’s track. They sailed to Greenland, Newfoundland, and the US East Coast before crossing the Atlantic to Ireland.

After touring the U.K., Atlantic Europe and the Mediterranean, they found themselves suddenly stranded in Turkey when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Like many other international cruisers, they were stopped in their tracks. Unwilling to leave Irene, they considered staying in Turkey; sailing back home across the Atlantic; or heading home to the Pacific Northwest through the Suez Canal. They chose the third option and sailed for two months and 6,000 miles non-stop across the Indian Ocean during the monsoon to Batam, Indonesia.

When they arrived in Batam they found their previously negotiated permission to stay in Indonesia revoked. Nearby Singapore let them stay, but they were required to stay onboard their boat. They lived onboard at the Changi Sailing Club for five months; in all, they spent nearly 300 days unable to go ashore. On February 2, 2021, they departed on the long cruise home to Washington State via Japan and the Aleutians. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, Peter and Ginger persevered, cheerfully adapting to a seemingly endless onboard quarantine and undertaking lengthy sea passages under difficult conditions. CCA found their persistence and ingenuity truly inspiring. CCA recognized their teamwork, courage, good humor, flexibility and innovative spirit as evidence of their exceptional personal and sailing mettle and awarded them the 2021 Blue Water Medal.

The Blue Water Medal has been awarded regularly since 1923 to reward  seamanship and adventure upon the sea displayed by amateur sailors of all nationalities that might otherwise go unrecognized. Past winners include Eric Tabarly, Sir Francis Chichester, Rod Stephens, Webb Chiles and Eric and Susan Hiscock.

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“Reeves, you are a beacon on the shoals of life,” a man yelled from up the dock. All morning I worked on deck. The weekend had emptied the boatyard, quieting the bustle of lifts and cranes. Today there would be no interruptions from passersby, and I could happily focus on the present task: preparing Moli, my 45-foot aluminum cutter, for her second figure-eight-voyage attempt. Then the voice: “I am thrilled to follow your adventure,” the man said. “You show me places I never wish to go; you have experiences I never wish to have. You are a warning to others: ‘Pass not this way.’”

Such sentiments, I had found, were not uncommon, and even I had to admit that the first figure-eight attempt—a solo circumnavigation of the Americas and Antarctica in one season—had not exactly gone to plan. The plan, in brief, was to sail the Pacific south from my home port of San Francisco, and, after rounding Cape Horn, to proceed on a full east-about trek of the Southern Ocean; after rounding Cape Horn again, the course would proceed up the Atlantic, into the Arctic, and then would transit the Northwest Passage for home. Admittedly, it was a challenging goal.

Mo and I departed for the first time via the Golden Gate Bridge on September 30, 2017, but heavy weather knocked Mo flat west of Cape Horn and then again in the Indian Ocean. The former incident dealt fatal blows to both self-steering devices; the latter broke a window in the pilothouse, drowning most of Mo’s electronics. Both required unscheduled stops for repairs, by which time it was too late in the season to continue. The only logical solution: Sail home and start again.

RELATED: My Seventh Circumnavigation

On July 10, 2018, Mo and I returned under the Golden Gate Bridge, closing the loop on a 253-day 26,453-mile solo circumnavigation, which some had dubbed, and not by way of a compliment, “the longest shakedown cruise in history.” Three months later found me in the boatyard readying Mo for her second attempt when the stranger’s words broke my solitude.

Departure day came on October 1, 2018. Indian summer in San Francisco is warm but windless. Mo motored under full sail out to sea—and with an escort fleet of exactly one vessel. On departure the year before, I had looked to the horizon from under a cloud of foreboding, but now I felt relaxed. Now I knew what lay ahead, and I had a plan.

Our first test of this second attempt came in the Pacific at 49 degrees south, in the form of a Force 8 and 9 northwesterly blow lasting four days. My assessment of the previous year’s ­failure was that I’d not sailed fast enough. From the beginning, I had intended to follow the example of heroes such as Vito Dumas and Bernard Moitessier and keep moving through the worst of blows, but as conditions eased and seas stood up, I made the repeated mistake of staying on the tiny storm jib for too long. Counter to all intuition, speed is safety for a heavy boat in heavy weather because it provides the rudder with needed corrective power when the extremities of motion are making control a precious commodity. Thus, my vow on this second attempt was to keep up speed, to carry more sail—to leave the damned storm jib in its bag.

By day two of this blow, we were surrounded by great blue heavers with long troughs and cascading tops. On a deeply reefed working jib (over twice the sail area I’d carried on previous occasions), Mo rushed along with a steadiness that thrilled me. Several times she surfed straight down a massive wall, throwing a bow wave whose roar rivaled that of the gale. But she never faltered. Standing watch in the security of the pilothouse and amid this orchestrated chaos, I felt my satisfaction growing. Now we had a chance at a full circuit of the south, I thought. Soon I found myself whistling happily with the whine in the rigging. Only later did I recall with embarrassment that whistling in a blow is terribly bad luck, and forthwith, I scrawled instructions on a piece of duct tape fastened to the companionway hatch by way of reminder: “No Whistling Allowed!”

And then it was time for the Cape Horn approach. Out of prudence and heartfelt respect, I had planned this rounding to pass south of Islas Diego Ramirez, a group of rocks 20 miles below the Horn and on the edge of the continental shelf. South of these is open water of true, oceanic depth, but between Diego Ramirez and the Horn, the bottom quickly shelves to as little as 300 feet. Here, seas unmolested by land since New Zealand can pile up dangerously when weather is foul. In this case, however, a low sky brought only a cold and spitting rain. We had a fast wind but an easy sea, and on November 29, 56 days out of San Francisco, Mo and I swung in so close to the famous Cape that we could kiss her on the shins.

By morning, the headland could still be seen as a black smudge on the gray horizon astern. Mo creamed along under twin headsails in a brisk southwesterly, and as the water of the Pacific blended into that of the Atlantic, so my pride at the summit just attained was quickly cooled by thoughts of the challenge ahead.

My Southern Ocean strategy was simple: to stay as far south as I dared. There were two reasons for this. One was that at my target latitude of 47 degrees south, the circumference of the circle from Cape Horn to Cape Horn again was almost 2,000 miles shorter than at the more-typical rounding latitude of 40 degrees south. Secondly, Mo would wallow in fewer calms. The monstrous lows that march endlessly below the capes tend to hoover up everything around them, leaving vast windless spaces in ­between. The farther north of the lows one sails, the longer the calms last; the farther south, the more ­consistent the wind.

As it turned out, a lack of wind would not be a problem during this passage. By early December, we were above the Falklands and had turned to an easterly course when our first major low approached. Its winds built during the day but really came up to force overnight, with the anemometer touching 45 knots and gusting higher. The main had been doused, the boom lashed to its crutch, and the working jib was deeply reefed. The sea continued to build. Near midnight, I was dozing fitfully in my bunk when I felt Mo lift sharply, then there was a heavy slam of green water hitting the cockpit and companionway hatch. The boat rolled well over, and I rolled with her from my bunk and onto the cupboards. Then she righted, and I could hear the tinkling and splashing of water in the pilothouse.

I groaned at the thought that we’d yet again broken something vital. Grabbing a flashlight, I crawled into the ­pilothouse but found no shattered glass. In the cockpit, the dodger’s plastic door had been ripped open and the windvane paddle had been pulled from its socket. We had been badly pooped, but all that streaming wet below was from nothing more than the wave squirting in between the ­companionway hatch’s locked slide. “Keep the water out,” was Eric Hiscock’s advice for those making a Southern Ocean ­passage. As it turns out, this is rather more ­difficult than it sounds.

Two weeks later and halfway to Good Hope, we’d already ridden out three gales, and two more were in the forecast. My log was a succession of “large low arrives tonight”; “winds 35 gusting 45″; “chaotic seas—wind continues to build”; “the ocean is like a boulder garden”; “another low on the way.” By Christmas, we were well past the prime meridian and into the Indian Ocean. So far Mo had averaged a fast 140 miles a day, and the storm jib hadn’t budged from its position lashed onto the rail.

The most dreaded of questions an adventurer can face is why—why pursue such long, lonely, tiresome, risky voyages? At first, such inquiry caught me off guard, and my responses were halting. Wouldn’t anyone, given the opportunity, put at the top of his priorities list a solo sail around the world?

To me the answer is an immediate “yes.” But to others, and when the endless days of discomfort are weighed in—the sleepless nights, meals eaten from a can, the perpetual, clammy damp, hands so raw that the skin sloughs off, the gut-gnawing fear of an approaching storm, the inescapable wrath of a heavy sea, and months of exposure to a remoteness that makes the crew of the space station one’s nearest neighbors—when all that is known, most would choose not to go to sea and regard as crazy those who do.

But here’s the attraction: Sailing the Southern Ocean is like exploring an alien world. Down here, there isn’t the evidence of civilization that one finds in other oceans. Down here, there are no ships on the horizon, no jet contrails in the sky; no plastic trash ever clutters one’s wake. For months on end, there isn’t so much as a lee shore, and the waves, freed from all confinement except gravity, roam like giant buffalo upon a great, blue plain.

Moreover, down here, the animals one encounters live in such a purity of wildness that you could well be their first human encounter. Many days Mo and I were visited by that absolute marvel, the wandering albatross. As big as a suitcase and with a 12-foot wingspan, this bird lives most of its life on the wing and beyond the sight of land. It can glide in any direction in any strength of wind; so adapted is it to this environment that it can even sleep while aloft. When my little ship is struggling to survive, this bird hangs in the air with an effortlessness that defies understanding. There, above that crashing wave, it is poised so still as to seem carved out of the sky.

Or take the stars. Out here, on a clear and moonless night, the heavens shine such that our brother constellations recede into the melee of twinkling and are lost. On such a night, looking upward with binoculars is like dipping one’s hands into a basket of pearls. Look down, and galaxies of phosphorescence spin in your wake.

By January 18, Day 105 out of San Francisco, we were nearing the opposite side of the world and the halfway point in our circuit of the south. After dinner, I noticed that the barometer had dropped from 1,010 to 1,002 mb in a mere four hours. What had been an easy 20-knot westerly soon veered into the north and hardened. At midnight, I dropped the poled-out twin headsails and raised the main. Winds continued to build, and by 0200, the main was down again and lashed to its boom.

By 0400, pressure had reached 998, and brought with it a freight train of wind from the northwest. Now there was just enough light to make out the cement-colored sky pushing down upon the water. Seas were smack on the beam but manageable.

The front hit at 0600 with winds of 40 gusting to 45 and a pelting, horizontal rain. Crests of waves were blown off; the barometer dropped another 2 points. When it passed, the gale settled down to do its business. Long, wide crests of sea broke together and stained the black water with city-block-size patches of cream and ice blue. The barometer kept on sliding. At each two-hour log entry, it was down another 2 points. Four reefs in the working jib, Mo laboring.

At 1400, we reached the bottom of the low, and the barometer flattened out at 989. The wind roared. Mo shuddered in its force. The log read: “Seas massive; some plunge-breaking.” Two hours later: “A crazy, mishmash heavy sea. Pyramidal.” At 1700: “Long gusts to 50. Working jib down to a hanky.” Later that night: “Our first screaming surf down a wave I cannot see.”

To this point, Mo had been sure-footed. Always at the center of the surrounding chaos, her decks seemed as still and solid as Mother Earth. Yes, there were times when she stumbled, fell off a breaker and was thrown over to the windows, but she came back to rights and shook off things so quickly that the fall seemed hardly worth mentioning. Only when I went on deck did the fierceness of the gale become apparent.

On deck, I moved aft to adjust the windvane when I heard a crashing from the blackness astern. But I did not look aft, I looked up—and there a white wall hung for a moment. I leaped for the rail as it consumed the boat. Mo rolled. She was under. Immediate cold down foulies and boots. And then she was up. Cockpit a bathtub. Sheets trailing in the water. The main halyard was wrapped around my leg. Amazingly, there was no damage.

By 0100, I had been working the boat for 20 hours, was achingly cold and beginning to feel undone. Wind had eased significantly, and with its diminishing, so too the sea subsided. The moment had come to start adding back the sail we’d withdrawn so long ago, but this time I did not. I left Mo with but a handkerchief of a jib, tore off my foulies, and hit the sack. I didn’t even set an alarm.

On and on like this goes the Southern Ocean. By February 12, we were below New Zealand; by March 5, we were 5,000 miles due south of San Francisco; and as we descended for the second Cape Horn rounding, Mo and I were weary but battle hardened. This approach proved more tempestuous than the first, but now even dangerously foul weather couldn’t keep us from spying that great rock, that Everest of the watery south. Another gale came on. Mo pointed steadily onward and to within sight of our goal. The seas built. The wind roared. And then all cleared. Cape Horn came out of the abyss—gray, hulking rock not so much barren as raw, and with breakers throwing themselves at her feet. Then we were around, and yet on we raced. On and on and on…

On March 20, 2019—and as part of the figure-eight voyage—Mo and sailor-adventurer Randall Reeves completed a 15,343-mile 110-day circumnavigation of the Southern Ocean but continued north for a first stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, after 237 days at sea. Coming next month: Mo and Reeves heed the call of the Northwest Passage. For more, check out Reeves’ book-length account of the voyage, available at figure8voyage.com.

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When I woke, my seasickness had subsided to a general feeling of queasy unease, like snapping to in someone else’s house after a big night out. The constant slamming of the previous two days was gone, replaced with gyroscopic rigidity. The boat was on rails. The sea bubbled along the hull and a curious clicking sound tickled the side of the boat, like there was something loose in the bilge. But the noise came from outside: a pod of dolphins caressing us with their sonar. Other, subtler sounds filtered through. Distant music, melodious but indistinct. Was it whale song?

I was grateful to be free from the nausea, so grateful that it didn’t occur to me that the Southern Ocean should not be smooth, particularly Drake Passage, south of Cape Horn—the 500-nautical-­mile stretch of big water separating South America from our destination of Antarctica. Not long after we’d departed from Puerto Williams, Chile, but before we had entered the Drake itself, I’d been struck with a cold sweat and irrepressible nausea. I filled a bucket with my breakfast and the boat with lamentation. Eventually Alec, the skipper, injected me with promethazine, probably more as a mercy to the rest of the crew than to me. Since then, I’d been cosseted in my bunk, gnawing at an energy bar during brief moments of consciousness.

I tried to get up and realized that all was not as it seemed. I had barely cocked my leg over the lee cloth when I was shoved back into my bunk by an unseen hand. I lay there peeved. I tried again, made it over the lee cloth, but stumbled against the bulkhead. I was a drunk trying to get dressed: a tangle of arms, legs and foul-weather gear. And yet the boat wasn’t moving. I didn’t understand.

I emerged from the cabin tentatively, clinging to handholds to make sure I didn’t fall over, and climbed the stairs to the pilothouse. We were riding a 4-meter swell; we were moving after all. My brain had just become attuned to the motion. The rest of the crew was on deck, watching an iceberg emerge from the haze off the port bow. At first little more than a pale silhouette, it grew into an island of towering white crags. Apparently, two days had passed; we were south of 60 degrees S, which explained the cold that suffused the boat.

Land remained elusive, beyond the bowed horizon but near enough for the arrival of seabirds. They skimmed the sea, breaking its skin with their breasts, daring it to pluck them from flight. A pair of whales emerged nearby, blasting frigid water from their blowholes. They dived back into the deep, water running from their slick skins like oil. Growlers, craggy bits of calved ice, hid themselves among the whitecaps. And between them, smaller shards, some shaped like birds that had frozen in flight and fallen into the water like forgotten ornaments.

Early in the morning of the third day, we sighted a shadow on the horizon: land. We had already slid unseen between Smith and Snow islands in an overcast twilight. Ironically, it was another isle, called Low, that first showed itself, only 4 miles to starboard. Seven hours later, we dropped anchor in the southwestern corner of Mikkelsen Harbor. We had arrived in Antarctica.

We’d completed the journey from Puerto Williams in just under three days aboard Pelagic Australis, Skip Novak’s 74-foot expedition sloop. We were 11 on board: three professional crew and the rest of us, whose experience ranged from very to none. Pelagic Australis is used for both tourist voyages and expeditions: mountaineering, skiing, diving and documentaries.

The pro crew comprised the skipper, Alec, his inimitable wife, Giselle, and Tom, a German mountaineer and sailor who looked remarkably like Capt. Haddock from The Adventures of Tintin comics. They were more than capable of sailing Pelagic Australis without any help, but the rest of us all stood watch and assisted with sailing duties.

RELATED: Unforgettable Antarctica

Before our Drake crossing, anything not fixed to the deck had been stowed below and strapped down. Now, before we could go ashore, the crew extricated the inflatable and its motor from the forward hold and assembled them. Tom ferried us to a flattish rock on D’Hainaut Island, where we carefully clambered onto the slick stone, and stood on the continent for the first time. The island measures less than 700 yards at its widest point, and is home to a cluster of seals and a colony of gentoo penguins. It was our first of many encounters with the captivating birds. We made our way through thigh-deep snow to a small rocky outcrop, next to the Argentine refuge that crowns the island, where the penguins had made a home.

Gentoos collect assorted rocks and pebbles to construct small stone circles for nests. While one parent sits on the eggs, the other fussily rearranges the stones, constantly shoring up their crumbling castle. But the number of loose stones on the island is finite, fewer than the penguins need. Consequently, they spend a lot of their time stealing stones from other nests in an infinite cycle of pilfering.

A sinister silhouette wheeled overhead. There were myriad nests for the skua to choose from, each holding a coveted meal of orange yolk cosseted in gelatinous albumen. The penguins responded to the imminent attack with flashing beaks and a rattling bray. But the skua was spoiled for choice, and it took only a careless ­moment—an instant of distraction—for it to seize an egg and fly off with it clamped in its beak. The skua landed nearby, cracked the shell and dipped into its rich reward. The bereft parents looked on glumly from their empty nest.

While most of us were engrossed by the penguins, Margie, an airline pilot, had other priorities. She stripped to her long johns and slid into the frigid water like a seal. And when he saw that he had been pipped, Eddie, a Scotsman, stripped to his goose pimples and waded out for a quick wallow. There were no other swimmers that day, but a challenge had been issued, and we would all, sooner or later, take a dip in the icy water.

We returned to the boat, raised anchor and, without a puff of wind to propel us, motored to Foyn Harbor, where we tied up to the rusting hulk of the Governøren, a Norwegian whaling ship that caught fire and sank there in 1915.

As an expedition vessel, Pelagic Australis carries most of the equipment needed for exploration on land and underwater. Among the “toys” aboard were two bright red inflatable kayaks, which were brought out and filled with air, adding color to the deck. My wife, Nicky, and I eased ourselves carefully into one and set off to explore some of the nearby inlets and coves. Having our bums below water level provided a new perspective. Soaring spires on our horizon hinted at ancient cities of ice; low dark shapes slipped between the cities like ships. It was unsettling, being away from the warmth and security of the boat, with handheld radios our only umbilical cord, as if we might slip into a void, never to be seen again.

That afternoon we donned snowshoes, climbed the hill overlooking the bay, and gained a different perspective. The vessel that had seemed so substantial when we crossed Drake Passage lay tied up below: a small and fragile thing in a landscape painted with a meager palette, a vista of infinite shades of blue and white. Snowy peaks stretched to the silent skyline, where they fused to the clouds. And, away from the babble of the penguin colonies, the jealous snow subsumed not only color, but sound too.

The following day we cast off from the Governøren and motored slowly into a bay of ice. Mist draped the mountains like a shroud, and a blanket of gray clouds hid the sun. Water lapped against the hull and trickled from ebbing icebergs.

Then, breath. A short, sharp explosion of air. A plume of water and frigid vapor pierced the scene as a humpback surfaced and blasted spent air from its lungs. Then another. The first noisily drew in a lungful of air, ducked its head and arched its back. Its tail slid from the sea, traced a trickling arc, then slipped back into the water. The whale disappeared, leaving only a ring of ripples as a reminder. Another surfaced, closer to us, and blew a cold cloud into the quiet air. And as we watched in silence, the whales dived and surfaced and blew and breathed and dived again; the bay echoed with their symphony.

When the whales submerged for the last time, we were left in frosty silence. We waited patiently for their return. When they didn’t, we departed reluctantly, like an enthused audience denied an encore. Pelagic swept us onward, down Gerlache Strait to Orne Harbor, where Spigot Peak hid itself in glowering clouds. The snow was firm enough to navigate without snowshoes, so we all went ashore and climbed to the col, where we found a small colony of chinstrap penguins safely ensconced. It seemed an extreme refuge, but the chinstraps were undeterred by the challenge and plied back and forth to the water some 500 feet below.

On the morning that we entered Lemaire Channel, the ice was sparse. A flurry of snow born by a fresh breeze brought a promise of sailing. We hoisted the main with two reefs and headed south along the eastern shore of Booth Island.

But after a few hours, the wind eased and the ice thickened, and Alec started the engine. We rounded the southern tip of Booth Island in polished water that reflected the mountains behind and inverted them in flawless symmetry. The kayaks were launched again, and four paddlers meandered to the anchorage in Salpêtrière Bay. We shadowed them in Pelagic, picking our way carefully between the icebergs.

The next morning there was too much ice for the inflatable, so Alec nosed Pelagic up to the rocks, and we disembarked over the bow. We quickly fragmented into isolated huddles of penguin watchers. The penguins, with their impossibly short legs and squat bodies, trundled up and down well-worn paths with their wings thrust out behind them like aged priests in tight cassocks, late for vespers.

RELATED: Sailing the Antarctic Island of South Georgia

Too soon ice began to crowd the bay, and we were recalled to the boat. We nudged through sheets of sea ice as flat as billiard tables, and bergs sculpted by wind and waves into intricate triumphal arches. Some were marbled with turquoise veins, while others harbored shallow grottoes with luminescent water and walls of iridescent blue.

We headed south, to Hovgaard Island, where we learned the value of the yacht’s lifting keel and the challenges of navigating in Antarctica. Alec was feeling his way into a bay when there was a loud metallic clunk, and the boat stopped. Despite his intimate knowledge of the area, we had hit an uncharted rock. We had been moving very slowly, so there was no damage, but it was a reminder of our isolation, our vulnerability and the potential consequences of getting something wrong in an unforgiving environment.

And then, too soon, it was time to plan the homeward journey. The relentless fronts and regular storms that lash the Drake meant that timing the return passage was crucial. Alec had analyzed the GRIBs and had chosen the upcoming Saturday as the best departure day. It would avoid the northerly gale that was forecast to reach Cape Horn in the early hours of the following Wednesday.

The news brought mixed feelings. Saturday was only three days away. The Drake was always going to be an ordeal, and one I would rather not subject myself to. But it’s part of the essence of being in Antarctica, and it must be endured. Our journey was always finite, but three days seemed like little more than a camera flash, and I didn’t want it to end.

Our imminent departure meant leaving tranquility and returning to a world that was dirty and noisy and crowded with the constant electronic chatter of mobile phones and televisions. We were filled with a new sense of urgency, a desire to make the most of every moment.

When we arrived at Port Lockroy, a sheet of ice still covered part of the bay and, with few opportunities to anchor, Alec drove Pelagic Australis into the ice, cleaving a red V into the shelf and creating a secure parking space for us.

After the solitude of the previous two weeks, Port Lockroy was a return to civilization, to a version of normality that I no longer desired. The station comprised a small cluster of black, painted buildings with red-framed windows perched on a small knoll. After lunch on board, we filed over the bow, down the boarding ladder onto the ice. At the world’s most southerly post office, we wrote postcards and succumbed to some souvenir shopping.

The following morning, we motored up the Neumayer Channel toward the Melchior Islands, home to another Argentine base, and a convenient departure point for the return voyage to Chile. On the way, we received a distress message about a trimaran that had capsized near Cape Horn in winds of over 70 knots. We were too far away to provide any assistance, but it was another reminder that the inescapable Drake Passage crossing was imminent.

Alec snugged Pelagic into a small inlet on Omega Island for the night. The next day was to be our last on the continent. Nicky reminded me that it was the final opportunity for an Antarctic swim, and persuaded Michiel and Aidan to join us. The water was black as night and littered with growlers. I held my nose and clamped my mouth shut, and Nicky and I jumped off the stern together. The water snatched the warmth from my body, and I fought the urge to gasp. Bubbles foamed around me, and I sank into the darkness. I kicked for the surface and emerged like a missile, gulping for air. The four of us scrambled back onto the boat and, still in our underwear, we posed for photographs, glowing pink in the relative warmth. And before hypothermia set in, we dashed downstairs for a welcome hot shower.

The next morning, Pelagic Australis raised anchor to sail back across Drake Passage for Cape Horn and Puerto Williams. I expected the worst and, with a sense of foreboding, slunk below to my bunk.

Brady Ridgway is the author of two novels and a professional pilot who, with his wife, Nicky, own an Ovni 435 that is currently on the hard in Greece after an eventful cruise through Europe and the Med after purchasing the boat in France. While current sailing plans are on hold, he is flying a Beech 1900 in the DR Congo on a peacekeeping mission for the United Nations.

High-Seas Charter Adventures

For the accompanying story, the author signed on with Skip Novak’s Pelagic Expeditions, which offers berths on a pair of custom, high-­latitude yachts on voyages to the Arctic and Antarctic, Cape Horn, Spitsbergen, Greenland, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands. For more info on their destinations and itineraries, visit their website.

The post Voyage to Antarctica appeared first on Cruising World.

The sun peeked over the gentle rolling ocean swell, smearing the underside of the clouds with Crayola colors. Janna Esarey sat on a creatively fashioned dock box-turned-cockpit seat as DogBark galloped across the Pacific at 10 knots, under a reefed main and full genoa. She was sailing almost due south, 900 nautical miles north of Hawaii, with 25 knots of breeze over the port beam. DogBark was in her element, with the strong trades fueling her drive to sail fast. Janna’s confidence in her boat’s aptitude permitted her to sip coffee casually while admiring the stunning sunrise. She contemplated the winding path that led to this moment, charging across the Pacific on a 60-foot boat she had learned to love and call home. This is the story of a family, a quest and a yacht called DogBark.

Like a complex puzzle, revealed one piece at a time, the tale begins decades earlier with a unique distance-racing sailboat built halfway around the world. It meanders across a coincidental meeting between two equally passionate (read: crazy) racing sailors, and a compelling conversation with an Arctic explorer. And finally, in its third act (thus far), it lurches through an intense year of boat renovations before ice conditions wrench the storyline from a wintry 71 degrees north to a tropical 20 degrees north.

The first puzzle piece materialized in 1989 when Australian Kanga Birtles, owner of Jarkan Yacht Builders, splashed his newly designed, custom racing sailboat, designed by John King and built in accordance with the relatively new Open 60 (now called IMOCA 60) box rules. The boat, christened Jarkan Yacht Builders, came in at just under 60 feet, with a 9.5-foot draft and enough positive stability to right itself from a deep knockdown. At the time, at least in the Open 60 realm, it was a conventional design, with a fixed bulb keel, a single rudder, 30,000-pound displacement, and about 10,000 pounds of water ballast in tanks extending 18 feet along each side of the hull. Birtles had the 1990 BOC Challenge in mind, a solo around-the-world race, and being on a restrictive budget without major sponsorship, wanted a “bulletproof” boat to limit costly and potentially dangerous breakages midrace.

The BOC Challenge (renamed the Around Alone race in the 1990s) was, at the time, the world’s premier singlehanded event. Of the 25 vessels that left Newport, Rhode Island, in fall 1990, with dreams of returning half a year later both intact and ahead of their competition, seven withdrew due to damage, injury or both. Completing the race was a testament to the strength and fortitude of man and vessel. In May 1991, Jarkan crossed the finish line fifth in its class.

An offhand comment from Birtles after the race underscored his vessel’s fortitude. Despite a chilling knockdown in the Southern Ocean during the race’s third leg, the only damage Jarkan sustained in 136 days of racing were a few bent stanchions. Birtles had built a fast, robust vessel capable of withstanding the toughest ocean conditions on the planet under the guidance of a lone crew.

Twelve years later, that sleek, sturdy Open 60 called to Al Hughes from the docks in Seattle. Al wasn’t looking for a new boat, but Primetime America, its name at the time, was looking for a new owner. Al already owned a boat; he lived aboard a custom 39-foot sailboat with his wife, but was drawn to Primetime’s sexy lines and long-distance ocean-racing credentials. She was going through a rough patch, owned by a bank looking to recoup its losses, and desperately needed an infusion of new energy.

Much to the chagrin of his usually loving and supportive wife, Al’s absurdly low offer was accepted, and he became a two-boat owner in January 2004. The renowned Open 60 was rechristened DogBark, a tribute to his pup, Gus, and a tongue-in-cheek reference to “dog-bark navigation,” in which sailors in Scotland’s fog-shrouded waterways listened for the sound of barking to know when they were too close to shore and needed to tack away into deeper waters.

Al’s friends told him he was crazy, but his ambitions crystalized with his admiration of DogBark. He’d hustle to the start line of the Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race in San Francisco, five short months away, to see what she could do. Al assured his wife he’d do one singlehanded race before selling the boat. Short on time and money, he changed little about DogBark, adding only the required safety equipment and replacing spent batteries and a few fraying lines. After one qualifying sail, he headed to the start line in June, with a perilously low number of hours spent sailing the boat.

But DogBark took care of him. Twelve days later, he took line honors in Kauai, Hawaii (a mere 45 minutes ahead of the second-place finisher), and sealed his love for the boat that carried him there. While 60 feet is a lot of boat to handle alone, and challenging weather conditions kept Al on his toes, DogBark made his job as easy as she could, barreling across the ocean without complaint. He hit a top speed of 24 knots, a wild sleigh ride down a particularly steep wave that had him holding on and shouting with glee. Despite his wife’s urging, Al couldn’t part with the boat. He returned to take line honors in the 2006 and 2008 editions of the singlehanded Transpac. So much for his one-and-done promise.

While Al was galloping across the Pacific on DogBark, a newly married couple untied the lines of their Hallberg-Rassy Rasmus 35, Dragonfly, for an extended honeymoon cruise. On their two-year voyage across the Pacific, Graeme and Janna Cawrse Esarey fortified their loyalty to each other and to the sea. When they returned to Seattle to start a family, it was with the knowledge that the ocean would call them back to cruise as a family one day.

In the following years, their daughters, Talia and Savai, grew into precocious individuals and confident sailors, and Graeme fostered a dedicated and competitive race crew for his Farr 1220, Kotuku. In the way that happenstance interactions can inadvertently alter the narrative of those interacting, another puzzle piece dropped into place when Al found himself racing with Graeme…and Graeme in turn found himself admiring Al’s immense knowledge and skill.

Graeme soon learned Al had a fast boat of his own. And, in the way that seemingly inanimate objects can wiggle their way into the heart of an unsuspecting observer, Graeme fell in love with DogBark the first time he saw her standing proudly in a boatyard near Seattle. As a long-distance-racing enthusiast, he fantasized about the adventures he could have with a boat designed to sail with a small crew anywhere in the world. But practicality kept him grounded; he already owned a wonderful boat for racing in the Northwest and, anyway, DogBark’s utter lack of interior comforts would not sit well with his family.

It was not until Graeme talked to polar explorer Eric Larsen that the puzzle’s outline came into focus. He and Janna wanted to take their daughters, now 10 and 12 years old, cruising before high school commitments took precedence but were struggling to find enthusiasm for the tropical route they took on their honeymoon cruise. Janna had learned she preferred cold-weather sailing, and with the world so big, taking the same path through the tropics felt uninspiring. Eric, recently returned from an unsupported expedition to the North Pole by foot, mentioned the Northwest Passage’s growing water-to-ice ratio. Walking across the ice wasn’t on Graeme’s radar, but exciting cold-weather cruising grounds were. Furthermore, that sturdy, oceangoing racing machine sitting in the boatyard had been calling to Graeme for years.

The rest of the family was—OK, tentatively at first—on board with the harebrained idea to buy DogBark, refit her in less than 12 months, and leave Seattle to sail through the Northwest Passage before continuing to the Mediterranean. Dreaming became planning, and planning soon became doing. Al, understanding the drive to pursue wild sailing dreams better than most, handed over the keys to DogBark, along with a seemingly limitless stream of advice and knowledge.

Shortly after ownership passed hands, my husband, John, and I were incorporated into the wild scheme. We had raced with Graeme and Al aboard Kotuku until, inspired by their knowledge and passion for sailing, we had purchased our own boat and left Seattle to go cruising. When Graeme called us in Nicaragua with the news of their “new” boat and their related Arctic plans, it took us less than a breath to commit to join them for the Northwest Passage. As a writer/photographer team, we would be able to document the journey while contributing as crew, and stand-in aunt and uncle to Talia and Savai.

As friends had with Al, Graeme and Janna’s pals regularly informed them they were crazy. The Northwest Passage, while a significantly more feasible route than a decade earlier, was still far from a sure thing. DogBark’s fiberglass hull and deep draft were concerns in a region dominated by perilous ice and shallow bays. But for Graeme and his crew, those concerns were offset by her watertight crash bulkheads and a thick, sturdy hull. DogBark was designed with high-latitude sailing in mind.

When Al had prepared to do his second and third Transpac, he’d touched up the bottom paint on DogBark, changed the oil, tested a few systems, and took off for the start line. The list of requirements and comforts for a two-week solo passage in temperate waters was concise. That list grew immeasurably longer as the Esareys considered a multiyear cruise for four people, starting with two extra crewmembers and a month or more of voyaging above the Arctic Circle. DogBark had a strong hull and an engine with low hours but lacked creature comforts—such as beds or a bathroom door—that would make living aboard suitable for the whole family.

So they all got to work. They crafted a “Master Project List,” a shared Excel document pages long with notes, dimensions, priorities and dates. Step one required several power washers and elbow grease to clear the deck’s flourishing farm of moss and mold. Step two was…everything else.

From the very first day, it was clear there was not enough time to do it all. Many boat owners spend three or seven or 15 years preparing themselves and their boat to go cruising. The Esareys had less than one. Other boat owners dream of it all their lives but are never quite able to untie the lines. Graeme and Janna were well-aware of the traps of shore life, so once the plan was hatched, they were determined to untie the lines the following summer, even if it meant sailing north before the water tanks were plumbed or heaters installed. With a long list and a short timeline, Graeme and Janna divided tasks and dug in.

Graeme focused on ensuring DogBark was as safe (and fast) as possible. He worked with Port Townsend Rigging to replace all of the rod and wire rigging, including fabricating new spreader ends and replacing all of the turnbuckles. Under Al’s guidance, he added a bowsprit to make flying and jibing the asymmetrical kites easier, and to extend the anchor away from DogBark’s plumb bow. Ballard Sails issued a new suite of working sails: a main, a genoa and a jib, and recut two spinnakers. Graeme added all new B&G electronics, an autopilot, and an electric winch to assist the new mainsail up the 85 feet of mast. He expanded fuel, fresh water and waste capacity. He purchased a new life raft, two solar panels and an engine-driven heater, but he didn’t have time to install them before departure.

One of DogBark’s qualities that enticed Graeme was her shorthanded sailing prowess. Built for singlehanding, the sail controls were designed for one person to make sail changes and adjustments, despite the loads of a 60-foot boat with a nine-story spar. Almost without exception, whenever Graeme changed the way a line was led, he soon re-led it the way it was originally. He updated the banks of clutches and replaced worn lines, but otherwise found that the leads, winch placements and reefing systems worked most effectively unaltered. DogBark was well-sorted.

Janna focused on the interior renovation. While safety and speed were tantamount, cruising with a family required converting the interior from a simple layout, one designed for a single, low-maintenance racer, into a practical and comfortable home with storage and sleeping space. She knew her husband would happily sail in a bucket (as long as it was a fast bucket), but the rest of the family wanted some level of comfort and amenities. DogBark had only one real “bed” (which had morphed into space for storing sails), so the biggest challenge was converting the aft spaces on either side of the companionway from water ballast tanks into cabins. In the end, they ground out 9 linear feet of ballast tank on either side, pulled out the large aft-facing nav station, and custom-built single bunks that converted into doubles. To make it homey, Janna’s father added shelving to cover the ballast tank and a pocket desk controlled by a line that allowed it to “gimbal” when the boat heeled. Doors would give the sisters some form of privacy but, without time to custom-make them, decorative shower curtains sufficed.

Once Talia and Savai saw their rooms taking shape and realized their parents were truly committed to this adventure, the dream felt real and they started to get excited. Having grown up on and around boats, they knew the demands—and the potential fun—of boat work. While their friends spent lazy afternoons at the park or playing video games, Talia and Savai were on the boat with their parents, getting dirty and working hard. They helped paint every exposed inch of the interior, cover the audacious yellow Formica countertops with a more pleasing slate gray, and re-cover the bright red saloon cushions with easy-to-clean faux leather. They ran wires through the engine room, scrubbed the bilge, installed wood paneling, and went up the mast to run new halyards. They brought energy and silliness to the boatyard, alongside their hard work and creative solutions.

Many projects that started out with a prominent place on the master list soon dropped off the back, due to a shortage of time or a change in perspective. DogBark came with a funky space-pod-looking hard dodger with crazed plexiglass windows that wouldn’t offer much visibility or protection from the cold bitter elements of the Arctic. The family agreed the dodger needed to be replaced. But designing something better within their time and budget restraints proved impossible. They made what felt like a compromise by simply replacing the plexiglass, and adding a frame-and-canvas cockpit enclosure to the back of the dodger, and marked the project done. Soon, though, they all agreed it was the right decision. DogBark maintained her sleek, sexy lines without the addition of a bigger, boxier dodger, and the canvas enclosure expanded the living space while maintaining visibility and flexibility for any weather condition.

Time is unbiased. It does not care how busy we are or how long our project list still is. Soon it was spring and nearly time to go. John and I entered the mayhem a few weeks before untying the lines, and jumped straight into final preparations. We installed hardware, tested systems, bought parts, stowed gear and went provisioning. In a blink, our departure date arrived. When we left the dock in Port Townsend, Washington, in spring 2018, most of the gear was still in boxes. Solar panels leaned against the stern rail, wrapped in foam and cardboard. Only half of the water tanks were plumbed. Tools were scattered across the new saloon table. But the bilge was full of canned goods, the aft lazarette was full of topped-off diesel tanks, and the new cruisers were full of excitement and appreciation. The puzzle was complete. The Esareys had made a commitment to each other, to DogBark and to themselves, and they were not shying away from that. It was time to go cruising.

Graeme knew he would cherish DogBark’s speed, but Janna, who had never called herself a racer, had never considered performance as a boat’s most important feature. But this boat won Janna over from their first sail, and in the following months, DogBark demonstrated her confidence and grace again and again. She ghosted across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, effortlessly reaching 8 knots in a wispy 9 knots of true wind; she powered through strong choppy seas in the Gulf of Alaska and easily legged out ahead of a low-pressure system bearing down on her in the Bering Sea. When a strong headwind contradicted a swift current in the shallow waters of Hecate Strait, the spiteful seas opened the forward hatch, filling the bow locker with seawater and effectively testing the strength of the soon-to-be-revered forwardmost watertight bulkhead. Despite an extra few thousand pounds of weight, DogBark sailed on, a bit sluggish but mostly unperturbed, until her crew discovered the intrusion and pumped the water back outside the boat, where it belonged.

Unfortunately, despite DogBark’s ­preparation and enthusiasm, ice conditions barred almost every boat from transiting the Northwest Passage that summer. Of the 25 boats to attempt the passage, only two made it through. Many more were damaged by ice, and one sank after colliding with an iceberg. The rest turned back to try their chances another year, DogBark among them. Having sailed past 71 degrees north and east along the north slope of Alaska, DogBark tucked her tail and sprinted nearly 4,000 miles in three weeks to thaw out her crew in the lush green paradise of Hawaii.

It is a testament to DogBark and her new caretakers’ renovations that she was just as comfortable tiptoeing past icebergs in the Chukchi Sea as she was galloping across the Pacific under a big colorful spinnaker. It is a testament to her crew that when one door closed, they were able to realign their aspirations and expectations, turn south, and take off for new Hawaiian cruising grounds.

And so, we end this chapter of DogBark’s ongoing story by picking up where we began:

As the sun climbed higher, pushing new heat into the already warm tropical morning, Janna relished in her quiet moment with DogBark, again thanking the old girl for taking such good care of her family. It had been a wild ride so far—the decisions, the boat projects, the learning, the Arctic rejection, the ocean miles—yet she knew the adventures with this marvelous boat had only just begun.

After leaving DogBark in Hawaii, Becca Guillote and her husband John completed an ocean crossing on their Valiant 40, Halcyon, sailing 4,000 miles from Panama to French Polynesia. Read more on their travels on their blog. Meanwhile, the Esarey family continued onward from Hawaii to the Marquesas and Tuamotus before returning home to Seattle.

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