Life of contrasts

  • Minuit baie Talbot 25 aout
  • Equipage Vagabond a Arctic Bay

How to describe the contrasts offered by this summer's missions. To focus only on the Nunavut part, the three weeks with Maya Bathia and her colleagues around the Jones Sound were only wonderful weather, ice breakage near by Grise Fiord, doing science while quietly drifting in front of gorgeous glaciers, and even camping! With Andrew Hamilton and Gabriel Joyal the three following weeks, we sailed up to the north, the cold and the fog. We had to shelter against gale, to rush back wind with strong swell, to turn back in Talbot Inlet the main objective of this mission because of ice blocus... We even broke the arm of the so precious multi-beam sonar which received too much shocks. But we came back in and with patience enough, we succeed to achieve all the work planed here in the fogy labyrinth. For example, the deployment of an oceanographic mooring (multiple floating instruments in the water column) that Andrew tried to do for four years without success! We did the way back strait to Arctic Bay where Vagabond will spend next winter, with for aim to meet the Austral, cruise ship from Ponant company to give a talk onboard. A reel technical stop and an unreel moment in an extreme luxe. And more ever after few days to live as we can, feeding us as the sea permit, feeling tension and even fear into strong sea with a complete and blocked mainsail...

Life of contrasts... In order to express the general feeling of the moment, to live on a sailboat in the Arctic, working with always different scientific missions, means experiencing strong contrasts marked with magics moments as much as very hard moments. Within the family, the hard moments links, weld ourselves, and when the positive is back it is more strongly. Experience the tiredness, the hunger and even the fear offer to appreciate even more the moments of beauty or joy. Everything is enhanced. And we chose this life, we made it becoming true since twenty years, nothing is best than this freedom. Freedom to live in these territories that we are still fascinating by and in the mean time to be useful for science.