Future Capital Partners and Bear Grylls - Northwest Passage

At 7 this morning we got an emergency satellite call from a lone French man who is attempting to row through the North West passage alone with his dog. He was being swept into the ice pack some 10 miles away from us and needed emergency help to avoid his little fibreglass boat potentially being crushed.

We changed course and headed North to find him and finally located him just off the ice pack.

We brought him coffee and food and he looked pretty relieved to see us!

We fixed a tow line and started pulling him away from the ice shelf towards clearer water where the wind could blow him West along the ice edge rather than back into it.

It took us several hours but finally we had him clear.

He was very worried for his dog though who had not been ashore for some time so we offered to take the dog with us to Cambridge bay our next stop. He was again very happy! What a nice man and what a privilege it is always to witness and to share such great camaraderie between people who are out together in the middle of nowhere. I love that feeling so much.

We took his dog and waved him off but the challenge for us was that the rescue left us critically low on fuel.

We skirted the ice shelf and slowed our speed and did quite a bit of praying and mental mathematics of fuel ratios! Well done Tim on that one!

Finally we made it into Cambridge bay at last after quite a substantial sea - it has been very windy and the skies had grown very dark and menacing. There was also a lot of ice suddenly all around the approach to the bay which means we have had to be very vigilant.

With the port in sight though I couldn't resist getting out the wakeboard and waterskiing the last mile into town through the ice - Baltic cold but good fun and something I promised my boys that I would do! Tick!

Now we have refuelled and drunk a lot of tea. Time to head on west....

P.S. the dog is safe in port with someone awaiting Matthew's arrival in four days time, God willing!

Bear

This was one of the most exciting days of genuine discovery and exploration that I have ever known. I have grown up on the tales of Franklin and his lost crew, and I have also read avidly of the recent expedition searching in vain once more for Franklin's lost ship.

So when we sheltered from the north wind behind this wind swept and truly bleak little outcrop of rock in an unchartered channel of sea, little did I realise what we would find.

What was unique about this place was that the channel that accesses it is so shallow, which in turn means that any bigger vessel coming down here would be almost bound to run aground. But you wouldn't know that when you look at this strait. It heads south and is big and wide.

This reason no vessels go down here nowadays is that the only chartered waterway through the north west passage runs further to the east in the deeper water.

So when we discovered the human remains, the fire blackened rocks, the mast shaped wood, the stone circles of possible camps, and bone carved sewing needles, you can imagine the excitement I felt in the pit of my stomach. Is this possibly a clue as to where the fated Franklin expedition passed by and what might have befallen his lost crew and ship.

So here is the case: if you are starving and out of food, and men are dying around you, and your only hope of salvation is to be rescued, you would surely burn the wood from your stricken ice beaten ship in a last ditch attempt to get spotted and to stay warm - at least until you run out of all food supplies.

I don't know the full answers - we are now currently at sea some 200 miles further along the north west passage, but what I do know is that we were in unchartered waters and that we stumbled upon some dramatically compelling clues that point to the presence of desperate men from Western culture. (Again, where would Inuit find such vast supplies of wood in a landscape bereft of trees, and why are there human bones and western looking graves and large fire blackened stones on a small rocky outcrop in the middle of nowhere, in the area of the passage that Franklin was known to have gone missing?)

Here in 2010 it is exciting, to the bottom of my own bones, to know that exploration is still alive and mysteries are still out there to be solved....

Tomorrow we continue on further into our journey...

Bear

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Bear Grylls North West Passage Expedition unearths possible clues of the mystery of Franklin's lost expedition...

Franklin's doomed mission to find the Northwest Passage between 1845 and 1848 ended in terrible pain, suffering and deprivation, as three ferocious winters took their toll on men, materials and supplies. In the end Franklin set off with a small group of men, trying to head south, attempting to escape the grip of their frigid jail. Neither of his vessels, the Erebus or the Terror, has ever been found (despite multiple search expeditions, including one currently underway).

Today, for us, the mystery of whether we had accidentally stumbled on the last desperate days, weeks or months of their miserable demise deepened. Our tiny island, no more than a couple of acres, and inaccessible to all but the smallest craft today, bore signs of large fires on the Northern side - abutting the Wellington Straight (where Franklin was known to have passed through) - as well as pins made of whale bone,  together with human remains. To build a fire on the Northern side made little sense, given the direction of the wind, save if it was being used as some form of signalling beacon. Perhaps their vessel had become beached in the narrows of the Straight and, in despair, and out of food, they finally resorted to burning their only method of travel - their only hope of escape.

After such an eventful overnight, the remainder of our day progressed smoothly, moving further south to Gjoa Haven on King William Island at a latitude of 68 degrees North. Our arrival and requests for fuel supplies caused chaos as Bear was besieged by old and young alike wanting to ask him a million questions about his "Man Vs Wild" exploits. Throughout this remote region, peopled by the hardiest humans imaginable, their knowledge of Bear and his show, and their admiration for his peculiar preference of cuisine, has been universal! Thanks to everyone for helping us get shipshape and fuelling us for our next leg to Cambridge Bay.

Gjoa Haven is well known as the site of the Amundsen museum, celebrating the achievements of the famous Norwegian with the first successful crossing of the Northwest Passage. I wonder what he would say if he could see the day when it might be undertaken in a 11 metre open RIB at 40 knots pushing through the ice!!! Times have certainly changed.

Tim Levy & Dave Segel

(Sent from the Passage on Tuesday 31 August)

Ok we have made it to Resolute Bay!

Been an amazing day of fighting our way through the thick sea ice and fog for the first time!

We left Beechey Island in calm seas and almost immediately ran into a pretty substantial beam sea and Tim helmed so well through this.

We made it across the sound and the huge cliffs loomed out of the sea and mist with the sun finding a small gap in the clouds to illuminate the land and guide us through.

We stopped briefly at the long line of deep sea ice and had a cup of tea to take stock and ready ourselves for the next phase and our first real time in amongst it all...

as soon as we started moving it became a game of chess to weave our way through the maze of floating ice. We were at a crawl with Ben helming, Dave on the roof with the binos and Tim on the foredeck with the boathook pushing the ice left or right to make a path.

We finally pushed through on one engine with the other engines raised to avoid damaging all of them if we had an 'incident!'

Eventually we found a clear-ish channel of smaller ice and could open it up and pray! The hull pushed the little bits of ice aside and we were soon flying around the edge of the ice pack heading for Resolute.

Finally we had to turn north back into the sea ice and weave once more towards Resolute.

Then suddenly the ice opened and out of the dense fog we could see the natural harbour of Resolute Bay the most northerly point in the Passage.

We refuelled on the shingle shore, dropped anchor and are now holed up in building sorting kit out and readying ourselves for a 6am departure where we now head south into Peel Sound and this is where it will get even more interesting!

Well done my team- legends one and all!

Bear

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All,

We've had an epic day. We encountered big seas and gloomy fog across the Wellington Channel, only to break out of the fog and discover a wall of ice in front of us as far as we could see, covering 70%-80% of the sea surface.

With patience and a little raw power from the throttles here and there we pushed ice out of the way and snaked our way through to open water an hour or two later. 

After 15 more miles of 20%-40% ice we found Resolute Bay in the advection fog.  What an achievement! Resolute is one of the furthest outposts in the Arctic, and the must-pass-thru location for anyone attempting to reach the North Pole from Canada. Excitement and relief both.

We drove the RIB up on the beach and coaxed our scheduled petrol truck down to the water so we could run 2000 L of fuel into our 8 tanks. We swapped out propellers, bled the air on the shock mitigation system, and then put the RIB out to anchor so we could sleep under a roof on land for a night.

Summary is, we're having a blast. Trip of a lifetime. Lots of joking and laughing, and then the occasional very serious moment which keeps us on alert all the time. Everyone is in great spirits.

The entire team is terrific. Support and logistics people have been tireless in prep and prep and more prep. They've been on constant alert.

We couldn't do this without the team on land making it all work.

Tomorrow we're departing early. Not at sunrise, because that's pretty much right after sunset. We've got our longest day yet in front of us, and all we know for certain is that there is a large ice field just outside of Resolute Bay that I can see from the window of our motel. But we're rested and ready for it.
 
Dave Segel

(Sent from the Passage on Monday 30 August)

All

Broke camp early. Set for Beechey Island. Historical sight where Franklin buried of three casualties of his expedition in search of the Passage 250 years ago.

We powered along the Devon Island coastline at 41 knots, 74.5 degrees North of the equator, with seals and whales and birdlife all around.

Glaciers poured ice into the sea. "Bergie" water (floating with sea ice) required everyone to be on alert.  Fog rolled in from the left, then closed from behind, then loomed in front.

Late in the day and several hours late, we made our rendezvous with the support vessel. Tonight is for repairs and prep for our journey to Resolute tomorrow. 

+ Forecast sea state: not known.
+ Ice condition: variable - clear to 9/10+ coverage.
+ Conditions in the high arctic can worsen rapidly.

We have every confidence that our RIB can deliver all that we need, but this journey isn't going to be that simple.

We have been fortunate so far. Keep praying for us.

Bear and team

(Sent from the Passage on Saturday 28 /Sunday 29 August)

John et al

All is well it's 10:30 pm we are setting up camp at Pond Inlet, NE bank of the bay's mouth. 182 nautical miles today. Gorgeous. Flat seas and huge icebergs. 

We made 80 miles more than our target camp.  Beached the boat, set up camp, and found a 3 foot wide whale vertebrae on our flat ground. Dave Smith is sleeping aboard the RIB at anchor, we four are tucking in to a tea and a boil-in-a-bag in our tent before bed.

Dave Segel

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Update:

We left finally 3pm. The sea state started off glassy calm with us all flying west through these narrow straits - amazing!

After 50 miles we headed north and hit these pretty big and steep white caps of a head sea- a steady reminder that we are getting deeper and deeper into inhospitable seas.

But the RIB just came alive and maintained a steady 35mph through this and handled so steadily. Impressive. We got a little cold and sheltered for 20minutes in a tiny inlet out of the wind and waves and then pushed on. 

As we emerged into lancaster sound the sea died thank God and we decided to push on across, reaching the north coast at 10pm at night.

We aimed for a small remote shingle beach, pushed the nose of the RIB onto the steep bank and rapidly unloaded all the camping kit.

By midnight we had eaten a few boil in the bag sachets, got the tent up and hard started a drift wood fire of a few planks with nails in it. There are no trees anywhere so it is pertinent to think this wood could realistically only have come from old shipwrecks.

We did a few polar bear drills and stashed all our food 100m's away and settled in at 2am.

At 3am we were in 60mph winds and our tent felt like it was being blown to bits. But a climbing rope did the trick to buckle it down! Good call Dave on the rope!

At dawn we were in beautiful calm conditions again and pretty grateful. Trying to get off this shore to the anchored RIB in a heavy swell or wind would have been epic!  

We are now packing up quickly and heading West as soon as we can to Beechy Island - a forbidding place where Franklin buried the first of his three sailors....  

Bear

The delivery team finally arrived in the RIB at 2:30am this morning after a monster leg! Well done John, Ben and David!

Tim, Dave  and myself are now in transit north to meet up with the RIB at Pond Inlet and we are waiting for the support vessel as well to arrive..

Here is Dave Pearce's email below as well.

Bear

- Hi all,

Hope all's well. I have arrived in Pond Inlet after more delays! Arrived early evening on the 25th, dumped my bags and went straight down to the beach for a quick recce for our RIB. 

Firstly, I had some good aerials views of the sea and coast leading up to Pond Inlet. The seas were calm and clear with the odd ice berg. It looks stunning and I am sure progress will be swift. I dived from one side of the plane to the other to see both sea and inland water ways. They look very clear and I remain optimistic of our route being somewhat clear. 

I think Pond Inlet is close to the same latitude as Resolute, our northerly point, so again I think seas will hopefully be clear but with the sporadic, stunning ice berg. Fingers crossed. The channel off Pond Inlet, too its North is very clear of ice. It is hard to judge the sea ice issue but I think it is clear. I could not see any 'chock points' to make an assessment of ice build up but my feeling is optimistic. The short term forecast is good and getting warmer with highs of 10 degrees C.

Secondly, mooring at Pond Inlet, there is no dock. Mooring is at sea and seemingly by anchor.  I have a house number for a guy and his tender to get out to the RIB. The beach is good to bring the RIB onto less me doing a full submersion in wet suit for an incline and bed visual/recce!...flash backs of military days......but from the beach it is good to get the bow in and unload. The beach is sand.

Although there are light winds today, surf seems limited but not that sheltered as the name of the place may suggest. The main beach is to the west end of the town and just past the obvious Pond Inlet words (marked out with white stones) on the hill side close to the shore. There are local fishing boats there.

The town is sparse and supplies limited. I will start preparing food tomorrow and buy the store out of nuts and oat bars! I think the delivery team may want a beer on arrival but at the moment there is nothing.

As you would expects the pace here is slow and getting information is nothing short of applying thumb screws.....but it is stunning, remote, rugged and atmospheric.  Big news is the chest punching and jestering for sovereignty of the NWP between Canada, US, Russia, Dans and to a degree, Norway....fascinating!

Dave Pearce