Our stay at our “Hotel Victoria” got even better when the two Aussie lads (Cam and Matt) arrived. They are doing a similar trip to us, their boat is a 17 ft sail boat, open style with no cabin and they also have the ability to row. We were both aware of each other’s trips so it was really cool to actually meet out here.
Sitting around swapping stories about our respective experiences over the past 6 weeks was brilliant and so interesting for us to hear how Matt and Cam’s trip has gone so far. To be honest it was also somewhat refreshing to hear that they have found the trip as tough as we have. They were initially planning on trying to get to Resolute but are also finishing in Cambridge Bay for this year.
Cam and Matt are two very experienced adventurers. Cam has kayak guided all over the world and has spent quite a bit of time both in the Arctic and Antarctica. Matt has guided people multiple times to the North Pole and has also sailed in the Southern Ocean (coming very close to death on one occasion). Not only very experienced and interesting lads but also two very nice guys as well. Hopefully we will see them again in Cambridge Bay.
We pushed off from Victoria Island early on Monday morning and we have had very favourable conditions since then. Although it was a bit choppy at times, the winds have been predominantly from the west and north west which means they are helping us along as we move east. As I write this, we are about 250km from Cambridge Bay. It might not happen but if these conditions stayed with us for a few days, we could potentially reach CB by Sunday evening.
If we get hit with less favourable weather conditions, then it will likely be next week before we finish. As usual, we can really just take it one day at a time but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit optimistic that we could reach Cambridge Bay by the end of this week…….
~Paul