Ice in all directions

Martin sailing through the ice. 

Aventura and crew have been navigating through ice for the past few days and at times very worried that they might get stuck in it and have to wait it out.  I was very excited for Martin to reach the next stop, Point Barrow, where he hoped to have cell coverage and the internet.  However, once they arrived, it was so shallow that the boat was hitting the bottom so they had to forgo the stop and sail on.

An email I received from the Jimmy Cornell:

"...we left Dutch Harbor 9 days ago, had a good sail north, through Bring Strait, crossed Arctic Circle, then we got caught in a large concentration of ice 30-40 miles off Cape Wainwright (from 8/10 to 3/10)  and spent about eight hours extricating ourselves.  We eventually made it to Point Barrow early this morning, Thursday.  As the ice forecast along the Alaskan coast looks quite favourable we decided to continue without stopping. There is still a lot of ice along the coast, sometimes quite concentrated. sometimes quite wide apart, so it is easy to slalom a course and generally keep to our desired course. Sunny and clear, took lots of photos, but only of ice as not much else, just a few birds around. Still, quite spectacular
scenery. So we are making steady progress."

(Photo cred:  www.cornellsailing.com)