40th Anniversary of the Circumnavigation of the America

[JK]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npWZ5DrQY-c

40 years ago the CCGS Hudson was the first vessel to circumnavigated the Americas. This video and song commemorates this feat.

[SkyHawk]

I've done the circumnavigation of N. America just a couple of years ago (2006), and it wasn't on a Coast Guard Ship. A supply ship. Than again my ship did it agian in 2009, but I was only missing the section from Vancouver to Tuk this year, but I was onboard for the rest of the voyage.

[The Dieselduck]

So how was this ice situation during the latest transit. Was it all that smooth?

[SkyHawk]

We didn't leave Tuk till First week of October, so It was still Ice free in the Western Arctic, but was ice edge was heading south, with Point Barrow closing in. We didn't see any ice till past Cambridge Bay, an area called "Icebreaker Passage". Overall the Ice wasn't that bad that time of the year, but was getting worse. Both Ships "Jim Kilabuk" and "Alex Gordon" where towing barges and it’s not the best of thing to do in ice. So a couple of times one vessel or the other did get stuck. We did get an Icebreaker Escort. It was advised to us because we where towing the barges that the Ice around Lancaster Sound (Northern Baffin Island) was too much concentrated so we went South through Fury and Hecla Strait. The entrance leading up to Fury and Hecla Strait had some pretty big Multi-year ice, but nothing too hard we couldn't punch through with the escort. After that it was Ice free for the remainder of the trip with one large Iceberg spotted off Labrador. If we didn't have the barges we could have done the entire trip with out the icebreaker escort.

[JK]

I haven't done that trip in going on 18 years.
I think the only thing that would drag me back to sea would be a trip to the Arctic. Isn't that insane, but I always liked going north.