Following from Toronto Globe & Mail Coast Guard keeps wary eye on ice-clogged adventurers By KATHERINE HARDING Saturday, September 10, 2005 Updated at 1:45 AM EDT Globe and Mail Update It's become an unlikely babysitting service. But at the top of the world, the Canadian Coast Guard is increasingly playing nanny to amateur adventure-seekers trying to navigate the narrow straits of the legendary Northwest Passage. “It's been my duty all summer long — babysitting these Arctic boaters,” sighed Jean Ouellet yesterday, as he described how an icebreaker ship came to the aid of two boats that ran into trouble trying to sail through one of the world's most treacherous maritime passages this week. “We tell them not to do it, but every year they come, and every year this happens,” the Canadian Coast Guard spokesman added. Since 1906, when Norwegian adventurer Roald Amundsen became the first person to complete the fabled route, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans only about 100 boats have done the same. “I think these people are very, very naive,” Mr. Ouellet said. “Some of these people sail in there on fibreglass boats and face ice that weighs 200 tonnes and is like floating concrete.” On average, Mr. Ouellet estimates that every year about three to five boats attempt the waterway that has defeated the likes of Sir John Franklin and Henry Hudson. But this year, at least eight ships set out to complete the journey through the maze of shifting ice. Grande Prairie, Alta., resident Ben Gray is skippering the Idlewild, which until Thursday seemed destined for failure after it became stranded on an iceberg in the Franklin Strait. However, the sailors on the Sir Wilfrid Laurier, one of the Coast Guard's icebreakers, agreed to escort the 14-tonne, 57-foot aluminum-hulled trawler to nearby Bellot Strait, where the water isn't expected to be as clogged with ice. Mr. Gray's around-the-world journey, which started from land-locked Alberta on May 24 and involved two difficult portages, is being documented on a web site, www.idlewildexpedition.ca Mr. Gray, a former oilpatch businessman and buffalo rancher, has told reporters that he has been dreaming about making the voyage, which includes sailing through the dangerous waterway, since 1979. “The history [in the Northwest Passage] is unique in that it has been shared by so few people, and that gives it a bit more romance,” the 66-year-old told a reporter on Aug. 16, as he and his five-member crew reached the half-way point of the passage. At that time, he predicted his boat, which has a 55-horsepower diesel engine would have made it through by the end of the month. Mr. Ouellet said that while the Coast Guard is breaking a path for the Idlewild, there are no plans to escort it through the entire route. “If we did that, everybody would want us to do that for them,” he explained, adding the Coast Guard's priority is keeping the waterways clear for tankers carrying supplies to remote Arctic communities. Mr. Ouellet chuckles when he recalls how two years ago, a man tried to make the voyage by himself on a collapsible rubber boat that he had dubbed the Mercedes-Benz of kayaks. “He wanted an icebreaker to escort him the whole way. What do you think the answer was on that?” Mr. Ouellet said. The reason the Coast Guard doesn't ignore the adventure-seekers completely is because there is a concern that if they don't keep track of the boats, it could eventually turn into a costly search-and-rescue mission, he explained. Despite the repeated warnings to stay out of the Passage, Gary Ramos can't wait until his 39-foot, steel-hulled cutter, the Arctic Wanderer, is repaired. The 53-year-old former skipper with the U.S. Coast Guard is currently holed up in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut while he waits for parts to arrive. “If things open up a bit, I'm going to go through,” he pledged yesterday. When the Alaska resident is asked to explain why he'd take the risk, he pauses and then says: “Why do people climb mountains? Why did Columbus sail across the ocean? “I could be sitting in front of a boob tube, watching television like everybody else on the planet, but I'd rather be out here enjoying nature — doing this. Unquote Bob Upshon www.kelticstar.com Would you take your family to sea in anything less ? No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.10.18/91 - Release Date: 09/06/2005