North to the Stepping Stones:
 

A Passage-Maker's Guide to Island-Hopping Across the
Northern Atlantic

        For hour after hour an eerie white cloud hovers above the
horizon to the north. My watchmate Liz and I stare at the ocean's
surface beneath the cloud, straining to catch the first glimpse of the
island of Surtsey, our intended landfall after ten days at sea.
Finally Liz turns to me, asking if there are mountains on the land
beyond Surtsey. I check the chart and report that, indeed, there is a
5000-foot peak crowned with a massive glacier--but that it is still
more than a hundred twenty miles away.
        We gaze ahead again, squinting into the sunlight, and in
another moment we understand. The white shape on the horizon is
not a cloud. Without realizing, we have been sailing since sunrise
toward a mountain of ice: the austere and breathtakingly beautiful
Myrdalsjokull on the south coast of Iceland.

        Thus it was on the afternoon of July 9th that my crew and I made landfall--
the fourth in as many weeks--aboard our 50-foot FD-12 cutter Brendan's Isle. We
were embarked upon an unusual undertaking: a high latitude crossing of the
Atlantic by way of a series of northern islands and archipelagos known as the
Stepping Stones. It was a voyage I had been thinking about for fifteen years
and had been planning for more than two. The route was similar to the one that
had been worked out (in reverse) by the Vikings--and possibly by the ancient
Albans and the Irish clerics before them--a method of island-hopping across the
Atlantic that had been known by mariners in both Europe and America since before
the time of Columbus.
        Anyone who has contemplated crossing the Atlantic under sail knows that
there are several standard routes, most of them designed to avoid the higher
latitudes, where temperatures are colder, weather systems are stronger, and fog
and ice are more frequent. The argument in favor of crossing by way of the
mid-latitudes is compelling, and most sailors, understandably, make the decision
to do so.
        Recently, however, an increasing number of cruising sailors have been
pointing their bows north. Part of the reason, certainly, is the lure of lonely
seas and pristine landscapes that has always drawn travellers to these latitudes.
But another part--an equally important part, I believe--is the dramatic improvement
in recent years in the strength and efficiency of our boats and rigs, the increased
availability of dependable weather and ice information, and the revolution that
has taken place in electronic navigation. Now, a sailor with a well-found vessel,
modern electronics, and a fit and experienced crew can expect to cruise in relative
safety to the Stepping Stones and beyond.
        Following are a few guidelines, based in part on Brendan's voyage last
summer, in part on the fifteen years of northern cruising that she and I have
enjoyed prior to that time, on how to plan and safely accomplish a summer of
island-hopping across the northern Atlantic.

Route and Timing.

        As with any ocean passage, determining the route and the time of year that
you sail are two of the most critical decisions that you will need to make prior to
departure. For Brendan, the route via the Stepping Stones started in the second
week of June on the Sassafras River near the Chesapeake Bay. Her first landfall
was in southern New England, her second was in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and
her third, which I hoped to accomplish by the first of July, was in St. John's,
Newfoundland. Here, her crew and I reprovisioned, reviewed current weather
forecasts and ice reports, and prepared the boat for a 1400 mile passage--the
longest of the summer--across "iceberg alley," past Cape Farewell, Greenland,
and on to the Westmanna Islands, near the southern coast of Iceland.
After a stopover in Westmanna, our route took us north and east on a
three-week circumnavigation of Iceland, then east to the Faroe Islands, south to
the Shetlands, and east again to the coast of Norway. In total, this journey
covered some 5000 miles and required almost three months to complete. Yet
except for the passage from St. John's to Iceland, no leg of the journey was
longer than 600 miles, and most were far shorter. And between the offshore
passages, there were opportunities to explore some of the most exotic and
least-visited coasts in the world: a feast for the mind and spirit and a virtual
smorgasbord for the senses.
        The route Brendan followed last summer is not the only one possible,
of course, for depending on weather, ice, and available time, there are dozens of
variations upon this basic format. In a good summer with settled weather, for
example, it is possible to break the passage from St. John's to Iceland with a stop
in southern Greenland. Later, your landfall in Iceland might take place in
Reykjavik on the west coast, Westmanna in the south, or Djupivogur in the east.
Once there, you may choose to circumnavigate the island by circling in either a
clockwise or counterclockwise direction--or you may decide to forego this part
of the voyage and proceed directly to one of the islands or archipelagos to the
north or east: the Faroes, Jan Mayan, Spitzbergen, the Orkneys, the Western Isles
of Scotland.
        The key date as regards timing for any one of these sequences, I believe,
is the July first target in St. John's. If you plan your arrival in Newfoundland
much later than this date, you may find yourself tangling with an early season
hurricane as it races north along the axis of the Gulf Stream. On the other hand,
if you arrive much earlier, you may discover areas of pack ice persisting to the east
and north and worrisome concentrations of icebergs and iceberg debris almost
anywhere in the Labrador current. By the beginning of July, however, it is
likely that all but the largest bergs will have broken up and melted, the sea ice
will have receded northward, and the passage across the 300-mile wide iceberg
alley will have become greatly simplified. If you carry a radar, the bergs that
remain will be evident from several miles away, even at night or in the fog. And
if you are lucky, as Brendan was last summer, you'll not see a single berg or
growler or stray ice floe for the entire 300 miles.
        Once you have crossed iceberg alley, unless you decide to add an extra
leg to your journey and make a landfall in southern Greenland, the danger of
encountering ice for the rest of the way to Europe is virtually nonexistent. From
this point on, the key considerations for safely transiting this area are the frequent
gales that track across the north Atlantic in summer, and for this reason, every
northern sailor soon becomes an accomplished (often somewhat fanatical) student
of the weather.

Weather Planning: St. John's to Iceland

        Two large geographic features determine the pattern of weather in the
northern Atlantic: an area of relative high pressure normally centered at about
latitude 40N in the central Atlantic called the Azores high, and an area of
relative low pressure normally centered east of Greenland called the Icelandic
low. The isobaric "squeeze" between these two geographic features defines the
position and strength of the main storm track as it crosses the Atlantic west to
east.
        The objective for a boat crossing via one of the southerly routes is to
stay close to the center of the Azores high and avoid this storm track
altogether. For a boat sailing north to the Stepping Stones, however, there
will be no avoiding a skirmish or two with the migratory low pressure systems
that inevitably move across the route. In a summer when the axis of the Azores
high/Icelandic low is shifted to the south (in an orientation that meteorologists describe as its "low" position), the storm track will also tend to shift to the south, and the passage to Iceland may well involve several rather nasty slogs into the
northeasterly quadrant of the systems as they pass. On the other hand, when the axis of the Azores high/Icelandic low is shifted to the north (and thus in its "high" position), the storm track will likely remain to the west and north of your route. This does not mean that you will be able to avoid the systems altogether, but rather that you will likely remain in their southwesterly quadrant, enjoying fast, boisterous downwind sailing--reefed to the nubs, perhaps even dragging warps for a time--but moving straight down the rhumbline toward your destination! For Brendan's Isle, the passage between St. John's and Iceland last summer was just such a downwind romp. Tactically, I had waited for a pattern that showed a fast-moving depression tracking out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and heading north toward Cape Farewell. By sailing from St. John's a day or two ahead of this system, we were able to cross iceberg alley in moderate conditions, slowing down and posting a watch at night, until we had sailed east of all known ice. Then, by the time the weather system caught up with us, we were ready to hop aboard and catch a ride.
        For the next eight days Brendan and her crew rode two such systems,
skidding down following seas, heading straight for our hoped-for landfall in
southern Iceland. On the morning of the final day, a strong cold front pushed
south, driving the ubiquitous low overcast ahead of it. The sun rose into a
cloudless sky and the wind veered into the west, setting the stage for one of
the most dramatic landfalls I or any of my crew had ever experienced.

Weather Planning: Iceland to the European Continent

        From Iceland eastward, the problems of weather planning take on an altogether different character. Once you set sail from the east fiords of Iceland, no passage that you make need be longer than 400 miles. The key to successful passage-making thus becomes learning how to "play" the systems, beginning a passage during a period of settled weather or after a front has passed, and concluding it before the next system catches up with you.   The rule of thumb for sailing in the high latitudes is that the weather up here is cyclical. The systems, which are often as close as two or three days apart, move surprisingly fast. The sky changes hour by hour. The wind clocks around in the classic pattern, veering or backing, depending on where you are located along the system's track. Timing the window between systems thus becomes essential, for six hours can often mean the difference between an easy downwind passage, a slog to windward, or a long night of streaming warps or being hove-to.
        Two ingredients are required for assuring proper timing of your inter-
island passages. First is your ability to access dependable weather information
(see the sidebar below). And second is your willingness to fashion a cruise plan
that is flexible and open-ended. Deadlines, for whatever purpose, can get you into
trouble up here. It is fine to have a set of objectives for your summer travels and
a rough timetable for their completion, but it is also essential to allow plenty of
open space for modification of your plans. Crew changes are possible--especially
in cities such as St. John's or Reykjavik, where scheduled air flights are readily
available--but these, too, need to be planned with flexibility in mind. A sailor
who can wait for the weather to work in his favor is likely to enjoy a summer of
beautiful northern sailing; one who cannot may find himself wishing he'd stayed
home.

Boat and Equipment.

        All of the standard wisdom applies when you begin thinking about what
kind of boat you will need to take you north to the Stepping Stones. Most who
have cruised in the high latitudes would probably advise that you avoid oversized
rigs, long bowsprits, large open cockpits, excessive superstructure, large
deckhouse windows (yet each of these features has probably been found in boats that have cruised successfully in the north). Many would insist that your vessel be constructed of steel (yet Brendan's Isle, which has traveled for fifteen summers to the ice, is constructed of fiberglass). The bottom line, it would seem, is simply that you need to find a good, solid bluewater boat with a strong rig, good sails, adequate tankage, a dependable engine, and a crew that knows how to sail her. The question of what equipment you'll need to take north is somewhat more complex. Once again, the standard wisdom applies as regards the basics: radios, navigational electronics, medical supplies, man overboard gear, storm sails, liferaft, and so forth. To the basic list I would add several items. As soon as Brendan crosses 50-degrees north, my crew and I bend on her "storm mainsail" (a full-sized 10-ounce main, roachless and battenless, with deep reef points, reinforced with heavy patches wherever it touches a stay or spreader). In addition, we coil down a sea anchor, fully rigged and ready to deploy, as well as drogues for downwind storm management. Each crew member carries his/her own suit of offshore foul weather gear, yet for passage making, I also insist that each be equipped with a "Mustang" exposure/survival suit. These relatively inexpensive worksuits are warm and windproof with inflatable flotation collars, a full lining of flotation foam, and drawstrings at the ankles and wrists. A crew member who suddenly finds herself floating around in near-freezing water in one of these suits will have increased her predictable survival time before the onset of hypothermia from a matter of minutes to a matter of hours--a critical margin of safety for an eventuality that no one wishes to contemplate for long.
        As to navigational aids, there are several items that have become
indispensable for northern cruising. After the magnetic compasses (always
plural) and a GPS (or two), the radar is, in my opinion, the most important piece
of navigational equipment that you can carry. At night or in the fog, radar is
essential for transiting the ice. Icebergs of almost any size produce a good, clear
signal on the radar screen. Smaller, horizontal slabs (called "growlers") are
rarely visible electronically, and for these you will need a lookout on the bow.
But growlers and other iceberg detritus are almost always found clustered around
the bergs themselves (often streaming in windrows on their lee sides) so that
avoidance of the bergs--passing on their windward side by several miles, if
possible--will generally keep you clear of the smaller ice as well.
        Beyond these basics, it is up each skipper to decide how many of the
thousands of available items of equipment to carry. For cold weather passages,
especially if you find yourself sailing short-handed, a mechanical self-steering
apparatus or an autopilot (Brendan carries both) can become a wonderful aid to
your crew's morale. A good cabin heater is also useful, both for passage-making
and for chilly nights in port.
        A prudent rule-of-thumb, however, is that when you are sailing off the
beaten track (as you will be for much of your time in the north), keep it simple.
Accouter your nav-station with the latest navigational software if you must.
Interface your instrument packages so that they can all talk to one another.
But carry a sextant as well--and make sure there is somebody aboard who can
use it!

Provisioning.

        Island destinations are generally known to be expensive places, and most
of the north Atlantic Stepping Stones are no exception. Provisioning of canned
goods and other non-perishable items, therefore, is best done before you leave
the North American coast. The same rule applies for any alcoholic beverages
(with the possible exception of beer) that you plan to consume during your travels.
Especially in Iceland, wine and spirits are prohibitively expensive, whereas in many
of the towns and villages in Greenland and the Faroe Islands, they are simply not
available at all.
        Fresh stores (as opposed to canned goods) are another matter, and one
advantage of sailing across the Atlantic by way of the Stepping Stones is that
with the relatively short distances between stopping places, it becomes possible
to replenish fresh stores at many locations enroute. St. John's, Newfoundland, a
city of over a quarter million people, boasts large, well-stocked supermarkets,
retail outlets, and supply houses. As such, it is an ideal port not only for
stocking the galley for the passage north, but also for making repairs and for
topping off tanks with fuel and propane.
        In Iceland and the Faroes, despite the expensive prices, there are
well-stocked markets with fresh produce in all of the larger cities and towns.
Reykjavik boasts American-style shopping malls. Torshavn, the capital and
largest settlement in the Faroe Islands, has several new supermarkets where the
Danish butter and cheese are displayed right alongside the fresh whale blubber
and puffins' eggs. And when you sail into Lerwick, the administrative capital
and major port of the Shetland Islands, you may be pleasantly surprised not only
to find your lettuce and tomatoes and milk in a modern supermarket, but also to
be able to purchase them in an English-language setting once again.

The smorgasbord: harbors and anchorages.

        The rewards of northern cruising come in all shapes and sizes. For some,
they have to do with fogbanks and icebergs and gales and the challenges of
successfully negotiating your way around or through them. For others, they come
in less onerous forms: a climb through mossy canyons to the base of a frigid
waterfall; a hike across meadows carpeted with wildflowers; a lazy sail past a
recently active volcano; an evening at anchor beneath snow-covered palisades.
Part of the pleasure of cruising in the north comes in exploring the lonely
coasts and discovering such settings for yourself. It is pointless, in any
case, to prescribe set itineraries or to recommend particular places to visit,
for the coasts here are long and varied and the possibilities for where to point
your bows are nearly endless. A few of the places Brendan and her crew visited
last summer, however, belong in the not-to-be-missed category.
        Leirufjordur: a narrow finger of the sea in a vast and sparsely inhabited
area of Iceland known as the West Fiords. Here you can anchor in milky blue
water at the foot of Iceland's northernmost glacier, the Drangajokull. You may
land your dingy on a beach formed by the glacier's outwash and hike across
grassy meadows in search of puffins and phalaropes. On a nearby hillside, a
barely discernible footpath and a deserted shepherds' hut provide the only signs
that other human beings have ever passed this way, and even these seem out of
place in this wild landscape.
        Nolsoy: a tiny fishing village in the Faroe Islands situated on an island of
the same name a few miles across Nordoy sound from Torshavn. The village is
entered through an archway fashioned from a whale's jaw. The narrow, winding
lanes and footpaths are lined with traditional sod-roofed buildings. The gardens
are filled with lupines and rosehips. And on the southern end of the island, a
climb to the top of a huge volcanic outcrop called Eggjaklettur provides a
spectacular view of Nordoy sound and the hills of a dozen islands beyond.
        Moussa: an island near the eastern coast of Shetland containing the ruin of
one of the oldest structures in northern Europe. The ruin is an ancient "brough"
or fortress built in the form of circular stone silo and used to defend the island's
inhabitants from groups of seabourn raiders. The structure, which dates to the
beginning of the Christian era, dominates the horizon as you sail up into Moussa
Sound. In settled weather you may land your dingy and walk up to the brough.
You may touch the stonework fashioned by members of an ancient Alban race
a thousand years before the arrival of the Vikings, and you may survey a stark
and empty landscape that that has barely changed in twenty centuries.

Final Landfall.

        Inevitably, as much as you may wish to stop and savor, the journey across
the Stepping Stones must draw to an end. The coast of mainland Europe now lies
only a few hundred miles over the horizon. The gales of September are soon to
arrive. Wherever you are presently sailing, you know that it is time to point your
bows east and conclude the final passage of the summer.
        For Brendan, this passage started in Lerwick, Shetland Islands, and
proceeded for three hundred miles across the top of the North Sea to the western
coast of Norway. The journey began in drizzle and fog and fluky east wind. The
going was slow and lumpy for a time, but with a forecast wind shift came clearing
weather, and by the second night Brendan was closing with the Norway coast under
a waning gibbous moon.
        The wind accelerated as the loom of mountainous headlands closed in
around the sailboat. The moon, dropping into the west, cast hard shadows on
the decks. Ahead, the first glow of sunrise framed strange, jagged shapes on the
hilltops to the east. We sailed in silence for a time, staring at the shapes, until we
suddenly realized what we were looking at. These were trees--real trees--the
first we had seen growing in the wild since the hills of Cape Breton had dropped
beneath the horizon nearly four thousand miles before.
 

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