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The schooner Bowdoin and its crew from Maine Maritime Academy have reached the northernmost point in their two-month training cruise and are about ready to head for home.
On Monday, the schooner was anchored at Hareo Island, just northwest of Disko Island off the coast of Greenland. Capt. Rick Miller listed their position as 70 degrees 22.3 minutes north latitude, 54 degrees 50.6 minutes west longitude, about 240 miles north of the Arctic Circle and the farthest north the schooner will travel on this voyage.
Miller has kept in sporadic communication with the college by phone and his comments are posted on the MMA Web site. He described the passage from Ilulissat, the schooner’s first port above the circle: “The past 24 hours we feel like true explorers. Departing Ilulissat, we followed the cruise ship Ocean Nova. Completely surrounded by ice turning 1000 rpm in the lead created by the ship.”
A lead is an open channel through a field of ice.
“At close to four miles out, the ship radioed that they had left a passenger behind and they were turning around. We were on our own for 2.5 more miles of thick ice. The Bowdoin performed like a champ! Clutching in and out, picking our way through the big pieces she held her reputation for being agile and able. Finally out of the pack, we headed north to find Andy and Elliot’s cairns.”
Miller was referring to Andy Chase and Elliot Rappaport, former Bowdoin captains who led MMA crews on trips above the Arctic Circle in the 1990s. Early Arctic explorers often erected cairns, enclosing within the stone monument something from the expedition as proof they had been there.
The crew woke Miller at about 4:45 a.m. on June 22 to more ice.
“After steaming through thick bergs in fog all night the sky cleared and wind was brisk – katabatic wind coming off the glacier. Five miles ahead we could see the glacial valley where the cairns are, but ahead was four miles of pack ice. No way in.
“Disappointed, we turned south but after several minutes we decided to see if a lead would appear that would permit passage above Disko Island. Looking at the radar, you wouldn’t believe there was a passage, but we found open water leads and are now making our way above and around Disko Island.”
According to John Worth, the sailing master at MMA and a Bowdoin captain, although they made their way through the ice, pack ice prevented them from reaching the cove where the two cairns were located.
They arrived at Hareo Island at 10 p.m. Monday and held a ceremony marking “farthest north.”
“Our passage north of Disko was unbelievable. Thousands of bergs and steep bold mountains on either side. Like sailing through the Alps, Tetons and Grand Canyon. We gave two blasts of hello to a local fishing boat, they chased us down and sent over a net bag of 50 or so snow crabs!”
They built their own cairn on the top of a ridge with a note and a picture taken with the governor’s flag.
Gov. John Baldacci was the commencement speaker this year at MMA graduation in May. MMA President Leonard Tyler presented him with two state of Maine flags. One went south and was flown on the MMA training ship State of Maine as it crossed the equator. The other went north with the Bowdoin and was flown when the schooner crossed the Arctic Circle. Both flags will be given to the governor when the vessels return.
The Bowdoin also flew a replica of the Maine Merchant and Marine flag as it crossed the Arctic Circle, according to Worth. The white flag, which bears the words “Dirigo” and “Maine” in blue and has a green pine tree entwined with a blue anchor, was designed in 1939 by Marshall S. Campbell of Waterville and was first flown on the Bowdoin. The original is at the MMA campus in Castine. MMA alumnus David Knapp provided copies of the flag for the Bowdoin, the State of Maine and the MMA tug Pentagoet.
According to Miller, their farthest north celebration included sparkling cider and homemade blueberry jelly doughnuts. The crew also planned a “northernmost swim” before their departure from Hareo Island on Monday afternoon.
“Everything around us reminds us that we are WAY north, but nothing more than the sun which does not set. It is not too bad underway, but in port it throws your time perception out the window.”
The Bowdoin is headed south with one more scheduled stop in Greenland before sailing back east and then south along the Labrador coast. The schooner is scheduled to return to Castine by the end of July.
The captain’s log of the Arctic trip is on the MMA Web site: www.mma.edu/arcticcruise.
rhewitt@bangordailynews.net
667-9394
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