After sailing ISBJORN, our S&S Swan 48, to Svalbard in the high Arctic in 2018, we aimed to get back to cooler climates this summer, but a bit closer to home. With the addition of ICEBEAR, our 1991 Frers Swan 59 to our fleet, we sailed both boats north from Annapolis in June, ISBJORN heading on a short hop to Newport, RI, while Mia & I were bound for Nova Scotia & Newfoundland.
After calling at Lunenburg, we made landfall on the south coast of Newfoundland and worked into the five-mile-long fjord at Hare Bay, where we rode out a gale before continuing east and north.
That early in the summer, there were still lots of icebergs on the passage to St. John’s, which made for exciting (and at times stressful) sailing, but offered us beautiful encounters with the ice. Both boats returned to Annapolis, MD to finish off our summer 2019 season. ISBJORN & ICEBEAR will sail south to the Eastern Caribbean in company in November.