After spending the past week recovering and catching up, we thought it time to write our final blog for this adventure! Firstly we'd like to thank everyone for reading the blog, making comments and taking an interest in the voyage. Here are a few key dates and total miles for the voyage.

The journey began from Hartlepool on the 16th June 2011 with the first port of call being Aberdeen which is where Katherine joined the boat. We departed Aberdeen on the 21st June 2011 and arrived back in Aberdeen in the early hours of 31st October 2011, and back in Hartlepool on the 6th November 2011. From Hartlepool to Hartlepool we covered a total of 10,335 nautical miles which took almost 5 months including time spent in port. From Upernavik, Greenland to Hammerfest, Norway we had only two nights in port at Cambridge Bay and two nights at anchor off Point Barrow, Alaska. We departed Upernavik early in the morning on 9th August 2011, arriving in Cambridge Bay on the 19th August 2011 and departing again on the 21st August 2011. We anchored off Point Barrow from the 31st August 2011 to the 2nd September 2011. We lifted anchor in the early hours of the 2nd September 2011 and arrived in Hammerfest Norway late in the evening on the 1st October 2011.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has offered their support, kind wishes, advice, and information to enable us to complete this journey. In particular we would like to thank the crew who sailed on various passages of the voyage, the postmaster in Upernavik, Doug Stern in Cambridge Bay, the Point Barrow locals who brought supplies while at anchor, Don Anderson from Summer Passage, Hammerfest harbour staff, Arnold Karlsen, Amund Halsebakke and Odd Reidar Eide from the ferry M/F Bilfergen, Dagfinn Leira and Alex from Aberdeen harbour. We must thank Philip Schofield from California who took on the role of keeping our families and friends well informed of our progress and provided us with weather and ice information throughout the Arctic, particularly in Canada and Siberia. His help was greatly appreciated by all! Last but not least we would like to thank our families and friends for their support, encouragement, messages and information sent while underway, as well as dealing with the uncertainty of our progress and final destination. Thank you :-)

Best wishes,

Jeffrey Allison and Katherine Brownlie

sveshamy@gmail.com

Our last sail on Sunday morning with flat seas and glorious sunshine!

We spent the week in Aberdeen (pictured) doing what repairs we needed to do (in particular the navigation lights and auto helm!) and waiting for the strong southerly winds to ease. The week passed slowly but we visited a few pubs and the maritime museum which had everything from the history of Aberdeen port, fishing methods and industry, shipbuilding to the North Sea oil installations, as well an interesting display of photographs from Scott's Antarctic expedition. The forecast was showing that conditions would improve by the weekend, with the winds turning northerly and seas moderating. So we departed early on Saturday morning for our last leg of the voyage. Saturday brought light winds from the north and northwest with slight seas, such a change after the North Sea and having had the wind on the bow most of the time since arriving in Norway! By the evening the wind increased and skies cleared, so we had a wonderful nights sailing with almost perfect conditions and little traffic. Early on Sunday morning we made the decision to continue on to Hartlepool rather than stop in at Blyth as we would make it in for the afternoon high tide. It was a glorious morning and we enjoyed our last sail in the sunshine...probably the most enjoyable relaxing sail we'd had throughout the journey :-) It was a morning of mixed feelings from being happy and relieved to be almost finished to being a bit sad that the adventure was coming to its end! By 13:00 we were approaching Hartlepool and once we passed the headland seawalls we turned into the wind to get the sails down and lines ready. Approaching the lock we got quite a shock at how many people were waiting for us to arrive! There was much cheering and congratulations as we came in and tied onto the pontoon in the lock. It was an amazing experience and wonderful to see so many people there..thank you!!

One of the many vessels we saw while crossing the North Sea..

On Friday morning we made our way from Leirvik (photo is of one of our last views of Norway) to head across the North Sea.. It wasn't too bad to start with but by late Friday evening, early Saturday it had picked up and the seas got bigger and sky darker. Saturday night wasn't pleasant at all with strong southerly winds, nasty seas and one thing after another deciding to break on us! It was a bit too rough to put kettle on or cook so we were deprived of coffee too. The North Sea is a very busy place with all the oil rigs and service vessels which seem to spend a lot of time going round in circles. Sunday was a bit of a blur but the sun was shining for a while in the morning and the wind turned southwest, with conditions improving by the late evening. We finally arrived at Aberdeen in the early hours of Monday morning and tied up in the same spot we were at in June! I saw several dolphins just at the entrance to the harbour which was great. Although quite worn out and ready for sleep we had a whisky to celebrate crossing our wake and arriving back in Scotland :-) So now we are doing a few repairs and waiting for the weather to improve so we can get back to Hartlepool.

After a weekend of doing very little but hiding from the strong winds and rain, we departed Sandshamn on Monday morning bathed in sunshine. It was glorious and I even got down to a t-shirt and went barefoot as we rounded the headland Stad. The sea was very calm then but it picked up later in the afternoon, as did the wind. We had some trouble with the genoa again and Jeffrey got rather soaked while fixing it in the big seas and we went off course a fair way! That evening the sea eased a little but the wind stayed relatively strong and it was slow going down the coast. Would have loved to have the wind behind us again! The stars were magnificent though and just after midnight the auroras gave us a final display, again very impressive and this time pink and green :-) Got to see the sliver of moon rise just at dawn and the sky was a very impressive bright orange and red. Tuesday was sunny and clear as we made our way into Bergen, arriving late afternoon. Was quite a shock to the system, busiest place we’ve been to in a while! Bergen is a beautiful city though and you can tie up right in the centre of town, near the historic buildings, bars and restaurants which is handy. We spent Tuesday night and Wednesday (the weather wasn’t so nice on Wednesday) there and explored the city a little, would love to come back in the summer! Thursday morning we left in the pouring rain and made our way further south to a place called Leirvik which we arrived at in the late evening. After checking the weather late that night we decided it was time to give the North Sea a go and finally make our way to Scotland then England!