Tokimata's Travels

Vessel Name: Tokimata
Vessel Make/Model: Ganley S130 steel cutter
Hailing Port: Coromandel, New Zealand
Crew: Peter, Rachel, Danny and Tom Garden
06 September 2023 | Bahia Nonda
07 August 2023
30 June 2023
07 June 2023
03 October 2022 | Santa Marta, Colombia
23 September 2022
18 September 2022 | Curaçao
11 September 2022
30 August 2022 | Grenada
13 August 2022 | St Lucia
21 December 2019
26 November 2019
19 November 2019
10 November 2019
24 October 2019
18 September 2019
Recent Blog Posts
06 September 2023 | Bahia Nonda

Panama Pacific Coast

It’s now well over a month since we left Panama City. La Brisas the free anchorage on the long causeway joining three islands, was free but not the greatest pace to stay, with poor holding and many disintegrating boats, but this amazing backdrop of skyscrapers behind. These free places where yachts [...]

07 August 2023

Panama City

We fuelled up on 20th July 2023 and filled with water, ready for the passage through the Panama Canal. We were to leave around 2 pm next day, staying overnight in Gatun lake with our local line-handlers, and should be through by 3 pm on the following day.

21 July 2023

Rio Chagres and Portabelo on the Caribbean coast of Panama.

We left the San Blas islands on July 10 2023, after a last visit to Ivin, the wonderful chef at Hollandais Cays. He gave a few more image files for his recipe book and we bought his terrific coconut cake one last time. At 11.30 we upped anchor and were off on our way back east, the transit through the [...]

13 July 2023

The islands of San Blas

On Friday 23rd June at last we headed across the busy canal entrance from Shelter Bay marina and into the Caribbean sea. We were sailing to the San Blas islands, Kuna Yala to the inhabitants, hundreds of small islands and coastal villages that are still administered by the indigenous owners of the land. [...]

30 June 2023

The jungles of Panama

Grinding rust on the hull of Tokimata eventually gave way to grinding rust on the decks, but this was made much easier by hiring energetic boatyard workers. Eventually this progressed to painting, using two part polyurethane over the various anti-rust treatments and primers they had applied. However [...]

07 June 2023

Two weeks in Panama

We arrived in Panama City Tuesday 23rd May from Manchester, with our usual heavy luggage: this time a Starlink system was the bulk of it along with other boat essentials. After travel via Amsterdam we arrived at last to see our taxi-driver holding a “Mr Peter” sign and were off for the hour and a [...]

The last leg

11 September 2012 | Aasiaat Greenland
Pete and Rachel
Our sail into Tay Bay in 40 knots in the middle of the night was our first taste of the much more variable weather we were to encounter on this last section of Northwest Passage. Up until now we have had pretty much favourable winds all the way from Point Barrow in Alaska. A scientist in Tuktoyaktuk told us that this summer's sustained period of westerly winds during August was very unusual, but it has allowed us to sail much more than is usual for boats crossing west to east. The Dutch single-hander on Tranquillo has not used his engine since Nome and it is very impressive that he has kept up with us (who do turn the motor on when we get down to about 3 knots under sail) and at Fort Ross he was only 24 hours behind the big British Nauticat Upchuck who motored all the way from Nome without sailing at all. We're only aware of one other sailboat who has actually sailed all the way through the NW Passage and that was New Zealander Graeme Kendall in 2010 on Astral Express who went east to west (also sailing solo).

Tay Bay is one of those uncharted places represented by white space on the charts, but is also one of the few anchorages in the area so many boats stop there. We knew the Danish boat Sol was there but in the dark, wind and rain we could not see them at all and made our way toward the the SE side of the bay watching the depth. Suddenly it fell from 5 metres to nothing and we were momentarily stuck on the sticky bottom ... after twisting and turning 180 degrees we managed to power off forward and get anchored. From Barrow as far as Cambridge Bay the tidal range is quite small - usually less than 0.5 metres. But from Bellot Strait east the tidal range gets rapidly larger with over 2 metres in some places. So some care is needed not to get stuck on the bottom on a falling tide. In the morning we could see Sol anchored half a mile away with a long mud bank sticking out between us.

As the wind had dropped and was now blowing from the north we decided to head off down Navy Board Inlet for the settlement of Pond Inlet. The name "Navy Board Inlet", like the Royal Geographical Soceity Islands that we passed earlier, shows the 19th century British explorers' ignorance, arrogance and lack of imagination, naming places with Inuit names after their sponsors and patrons. Boothia Peninsula too was named after Felix Booth, a London gin merchant who had given money to one of the early expeditions. In contrast to Canada, Greenland has replaced most of the Danish colonial place names with local Greenlandic names.

Pond Inlet is a substantial settlement built high above a sandy beach. We anchored off in flat calm conditions near some large icebergs. On shore we met some friendly locals about to go sea kayaking - he a metallurgist and she a biologist, very interesting! We also met the local Mounted Police sergeant who was incredibly helpful and phoned the fuel truck for us so we could fill our gerry cans on the beach. The fuel here was the cheapest we had found anywhere at CA$1.08 per litre - even cheaper than Sitka, Alaska, and much cheaper than Cambridge Bay or Tuktoyaktuk. We arrived on the Saturday of what turned out to be a long weekend for Labour Day, so most of the town was closed including the visitor centre, library and all shops except the two grocery stores. But we did learn a lot about the area from the locals. There are huge iron ore deposits in the area with some very high grade (80% pure) ore about 100km away. A road to the mine site has just been completed and a rail line is being built 200km south form the mine to the top of Foxe Basin (the very top of Hudson Bay) so send out the ore for transport on specially strengthened bulk carriers. This is bringing employment back to the area that has reduced since the big zinc mine closed near Arctic Bay. Exploitation of the mineral resources of the arctic is a tough issue: the area is vast and there is a need for employment and economic development if it is balanced with environmental protection.

We left Pond Inlet in the late afternoon as the wind was forecast to rise and there is no shelter whatsoever off the town. We headed 10 miles down the coast to Albert Harbour - a spectacular ravine between some amazing pyramid shaped mountains and a similarly rugged island. The water is so deep in the area that it is difficult to find an anchorage and we ended up just 50m off a gravel beach with the anchor in 15m of water but the boat hanging out in 40m of water - not ideal. The wind came up to gale force that night with gusts well over 40 knots and we had Sol on the radio talking to us as they tacked their way down the sound heading for shelter with us. They came in at 2am after looking for a better place but ended up next to us hanging off the same beach as big swells rolled in and gusts bashed us about. Both boats hung onto their anchors and by morning all was calm again. The speed that the weather changes is quite remarkable here. Tom was shore early and climbed to the top of the peak towering 2500 feet above us.

It was a relief to leave next evening and we headed off towards the open ocean of Baffin Bay then sailed south east down the coast of Baffin Island for about 200 miles heading for the last sheltered spot before crossing to Greenland. We pulled into Ravenscraig Harbour on a beautiful day, with a mother polar bear and cubs on the beach. Some Inuit in an aluminium skiff came by to say hello. There is no village here but these guys were out camping, a group of youngsters from all over the Nunavut region who were being given first hand experience of traditional skills by an older local guy. They invited us over to their camp to get some arctic char fish. We moved to another bay next to Sol for the night as the wind was forecast to strengthen, and sure enough by 10pm it was blowing a gale again with gusts over 40 knots. We woke in the morning to find the beach and boat covered with snow. As the weather system passed overhead it was calm for an hour before the wind was raging again from a different direction and we bounced around and finally dragged down very close to Sol - just in time we powered away and re- anchored. This weather is so changeable, so extreme, with no room for error! Only the evening before we'ld been talking with Sol about how reliable our Rocna anchors are ...

Tom and Pete went ashore in the afternoon to try and find the Inuit camp but failed after an hour of trekking about and we decided to head of across Baffin Bay that evening to Greenland while we had a good NW breeze. As usual for this area, the wind was fickle and the good breeze died after 24 hours and we spent the next 2 1/2 days motor-sailing towards Aasiaat in a SE direction. There are large icebergs in Baffin Bay still, especially for the first 100 miles form the Baffin Island coast. Some of them are huge - up to 1km long. Tipping the last of our gerry cans of diesel into the main tanks we arrived in Aassiaat in the dark after the 380 mile trip with just a few litres of fuel left.

Aasiaat is a very small and crowded harbour and at 11pm in the dark it was quite confusing with unlit boats moored everywhere, big mooring lines snaking across the water, and docks not shown on the chart. Kim from Sol heard us on the radio and directed us into a spot next to him using a big flashlight, he was tucked in between some big fishing trawlers. Greenland is one of the most relaxed countries in terms of official procedures and nothing was open on Sunday so it was not until the next day that we found the police station and asked what the clearance procedures were. The local policeman just stamped our passports and said "Welcome to Greenland" - none of the usual drama of declaring how much alcohol was onboard, how long we were staying, issuing cruising permits, writing out intended itineraries, or reminding us of time limits and complicated rules and reporting procedures.

This little town has such a different feel to the north american settlements: here are colourful little buildings, all apparently pre-fabricated in Denmark, houses perched on rock with clean streets and generally tidy houses... the only worry is graffiti with swastikas (?!) and obscenities... the small harbour is absolutely full of boats - shrimp fishing is the main industry. A "seaman's home" on shore, run by young Christian folk, offers cheap accommodation apparently, spotless dining room and toilets, some local art for sale and a (rather expensive) laundry service. A local museum shows the history here, this settlement for example founded in the 1750's with Dutch and Norwegian whaling already well-established. The Greenlandic peoples are Inuit (Thule culture) but there are obvious differences for example in costume, amazingly bright suits of fur and felt, with white lace, leather embroidery and tremendously bright and complicated beadwork, just lovely! The "kamiks" for example, their long fur boots were made in all sorts of shapes and sizes, some for everyday use, some for special events, with costume differences for elderly and young women for example. The use of floral decoration, bright colours, white lace and beads all faintly reminiscent of south sea island aesthetics... The local language appears vigorous here, with signs in Greenlandic and Danish and sometimes English too.

So, we have pretty much finished the Northwest Passage. Amundsen's definition of the passage was arctic circle to arctic circle but we are still 200 miles north of the arctic circle at Aassiaat. Another definition is from Bering Strait to Baffin Bay. We plan to leave the boat in Nuuk, 300 miles south of here, for the winter so that will be the official finish. Next summer we will explore Greenland and then head for Iceland and Europe.

For the sailors amongst you, here are some statistic of the trip. We have covered 5287 nautical miles (9,797 km) since leaving Sitka (3423 NM since Nome), done an average of about 80 miles per day including all stops since leaving Nome for the passage proper - the short season and long distances require a fast rate of progress compared to normal cruising. We have run the engine for 427 hours since Nome, including motorsailing and straight motoring and some battery charging. That works out to around 50% of the distance covered purely under sail and the rest either sailing with the motor assisting or full-on motoring. We've used about 970 litres of diesel at an average cost of around US$1.20 per litre. 250 litres was used for heating (Dickenson diesel heater) and 720 litres for propulsion. The warmest days we had were nearly 20 deg C in Nome and the coldest about 0 deg C on Baffin Island. The sea water temperature has ranged from about 10 deg C at Sitka and Nome down to -2 deg C near Victoria Island. We had one day with snow, about 10 days with rain out of 90 days travelling, around 10 days with significant fog (mainly in the last 2 weeks), 3 or 4 days with strong winds (40 knots or more) and probably 30 days of flat calm. We had to work through sea ice (broken up pack ice no more than 3/10 coverage) on about 5 or 6 days - along the north coast of Alaska and off the west coast of King WIlliam Island in Victoria Straight. We had to watch for big icebergs (shed from the Greenland Glaciers) for about 10 or 12 days from the east end of Bellot Strait onwards. The current has been with us most of the way, giving us around 350 "free miles" or nearly 10% extra boost on average. Nothing serious has broken on the boat - we replaced an alternator in Nome, repaired a torn genoa sail as sea, replaced the autopilot display unit with a spare as sea, jury rigged a spare fluxgate compass for the autopilot when close to the magnetic north pole, and fixed a seized anchor windlass solenoid with a big hammer. Most of the spares and emergency equipment we had we not used but we wouldn't be without them as there is almost no help available quickly in the arctic and you must be self reliant.
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