(APL); and educators from the PSC,
including Zeta Strickland, who played
a major role in the successful transit
of the Northwest Passage. In addition
to the scientists, Ocean Watch was
equipped with a full suite of scientific
instrumentation, including Reynolds’s
masthead-mounted weather station,
and a SeaKeeper 1000 ocean-analysis
unit, and the crew had been enlisted to
carry out research and data-gathering
for a host of related projects conceived
by the APL and other institutions.
Passing the 14,000-mile mark was
a significant milestone for the project:
Six months removed from the Pacific
Northwest—and with a couple of
thousand extra miles tacked on to the
total due to weather and currents—
Tied up in St. Johns after traversing the Northest Passage, west to east.
Ocean Watch had passed the halfway
point of the roughly 25,000-mile
adventure, and was heading home.
It had taken a lot of work, some
rugged sailing, and a fair bit of good
fortune, to get that far.
Setting forth from Seattle due north
for Alaska, Schrader’s goal was to
complete a clockwise circumnavigation
of the continents, starting with a
west-to-east run through the historic
Northwest Passage, which by strict
definition is a voyage from the Arctic
Circle, at 66º 30’N; over the top of
North America via an interconnected
series of seas, straits, gulfs and sounds;
and south past the Arctic Circle on the
other side.
Though numerous explorers and
expeditions sought a route through Captain Mark Schrader and David Thoreson discussed ocean conservation
the passage during the 1800s, the first with students in new York City.
successful transit was completed by
Norwegian legend Roald Amundsen,
in an epic three-year journey on his
purpose-built Gjoa from 1903-1906.
The first “modern” cruising sailor to
make it was Dutchman Willy de Roos,
aboard a 42-foot ketch called Williwaw,
in 1977. Unlike Ocean Watch, entering
from the Pacific side, both Amundsen
and de Roos traveled the opposite,
east-to-west route, from the Atlantic to
the Pacific.
After a relatively easy trip from
Seattle to Juneau, Alaska, Ocean Watch’s
first real test was the dash across the
open waters of the Gulf of Alaska to
the Aleutian Island outpost of Dutch
Harbor. From there it was north to
Nome, through an incredibly benign Fireboats give a warm, watery greeting to “Ocean Watch” as she enters Miami, Florida.
Bering Strait, and on to the Alaskan
48° No r t h , Ja N u a r y 2010 Pa g e 49
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