[Aug 3 report from a Northwest Passage attempt: Will they make it this year?]

...after rounding Cape Bathurst, the crew plans to stop somewhere in the vicinity of the Parry Peninsula in the Amundsen Gulf. There is still a significant ice plug to the east of the peninsula, and once there, we'll regroup, download the latest ice charts, and plot our next move. The ice situation in the Northwest Passage is quite different than the last two summers, and we'll be addressing that topic in greater depth as the week moves forward.

[Flashback to Aug 14, 2008: New ice already forming in the Northwest Passage]

The bad news is new ice is forming in the northern areas above Resolute and way above Barrow.

[August 17, 2008: After barely squeaking through the NW Passage in "an easy year", a sailor issues a warning]

More on this later, but we have been astoundingly lucky so far and I don't think we could have got through a day earlier. If all the six or seven boats that we know about get through this year, there will be a hundred trying next year. For their benefit, I think I should say loud and clear that it isn't as easy as it might look. It has been the most difficult thing I have ever done - makes Cape Horn look like a jolly by comparison - and we have done it in an easy year. If just a couple of things had gone the other way, we could have been in very serious trouble - and we're by no means on our way home yet.