As I am typing this, I am sitting at the farm house in Sweden watching the tracker on the website, curiously waiting for the next update from Andy & ICEBEAR via the YB tracker or the Sat phone. Now I know what it feels like for the families back home, following the progress from the home. The tracker and the new messages we have been posted along with it is a nice treat for us not being onboard, and I thought I could cut together a short blog with some updates from Andy....
IceBear is currently offshore, about 100 nm from Lunenburg and off the coast of Nova Scotia. They had a nice passage south from St. Johns with a stop in the French Island St. Pierre. But this is the first time in a very long time that I am not onboard, sailing with Andy and the crew and finishing off the season. We made the decision a while back, we have now lived at the farm in Sweden over two years ...
In 8 days I ran up 50+ gigabytes of usage with no problems
A couple of weeks ago Visible announced they have removed the 5 megabits per second speed cap making their $40 unlimited plan even more interesting. In my entry on the change I promised I would order a line and see how it worked out. The SIM has arrived and testing is well underway and although it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses I’m going to try using Visible as my main cell carrier (though I have an embarrassing number of alternatives).
Gray on gray. The fog came in hard at the Baccalieu Tickle yesterday. Within the hour it was raining. Since then it’s been variations on same with a kind of wet chill that is reminiscent of the Southern Ocean.
When I woke, the on deck thermometer read 50 degrees; water temperature, 47. The first layer of thin thermals went on after coffee, the thin layer because, well, this is just the beginning.
#270. Ben Shaw & Lauren Keane were recent crewmembers on ICEBEAR for the Annapolis to Lunenburg passage. Mia & I first met Ben’s parents, Sid & Rebecca, in 2011 in St. Pierre, as we were getting ready to sail ARCTURUS trans-Atlantic. Inspired by us, and with a career in radio production Ben recently started the ‘Out the Gate’ sailing podcast. I talked to him and Lauren about their goals to take their kids long-distance cruising and how they’re making that dream into reality.
