Our Route to the Aleutians

27 May Our Route to the Aleutians

Weather always influences the decisions about sailing routes. Prudent sailors wait for favorable weather windows before heading out on distant voyages. Patience was especially important on this voyage from Hokkaido to the Aleutian Islands, an area that produces a constant train of low-pressure systems that march across these waters West to East. Fortunately, the weather forecasting program Predict Wind and confirmed by other sources delivered a promising window of fair weather and we were underway from Otaru, Hokkaido after a short wait. The next decision was to choose a route that would keep us in international waters. Co-Captains Don and Patrick decided to travel up the Sea of Okhotsk along the west side of the Kuril Islands of Russia. The route showed the best Sea of Okhotsk exit at the north end where we were to take a hard turn to starboard, sail through the channel, and then proceed following the great circle over the top of the Aleutians. That would allow us to stop in Attu if the weather closed in or to carry on to Dutch Harbor if conditions allowed. The AIS (Automatic Identification System) showed sparse vessel traffic in the Sea of Okhotsk but significant vessel traffic on the Great Circle over the Aleutians. We exited the channel through the Kuril Islands into the Pacific.

                                                                   Our route from Otaru to Wakkanai and onward into the Sea of Okhotsk

Our route from Otaru to Wakkanai and onward into the Sea of Okhotsk – Paper Version as backup!

              This photo shows our route out of the channel of the Sea of Okhotsk

What the chart showed starkly was how little room there was to maneuver. The 12-mile territorial limit of Russian waters flanked us on both sides, leaving only a narrow corridor of international water to thread through. At our closest point we had roughly a mile and a half of open water between us and the Russian line on either side.

Here is a radar screen shot of the 4-mile-wide channel between Ostrov Paramushir to the North and Ostrov Onekotan to the South as we head ESE

Ostrov is the Russian word for island. We stayed within the narrow strip of international water in the middle of the channel.
After exiting the channel out of the Sea of Okhotsk we set a course for Dutch Harbor, Aleutian Islands leaving Attu Island to port then proceeding over the top of the other Aleutian Islands. The AIS showed heavy traffic of big fast movers on the Great Circle route, so in order to avoid most of that traffic, we selected a route parallel to and south of the Great Circle. The weather forecast looked favorble for passage all the way to Dutch Harbor.

Starr’s actual course is shown in red, deliberately offset south of the Great Circle route shown in black. The AIS made the decision easy, the Great Circle was a highway of large fast-moving commercial traffic, and we wanted no part of it.

As I write this on May 27, we are moving right along our route north of the Aleutian chain. The wind and seas are treating us kindly. Air temperature is about 35. Water temperature is 37, up from the 33 degrees we recorded in the Sea of Okhotsk. Forecast shows that we will probably have some interesting weather as we near Dutch Harbor, so we are hammer down. Standby for updates.

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