DrakeParagon

A postcard from our time thus far in Svalbard aboard Paragon with Drake, Mo, and Éanna reunited! I used to love 'Where the Sidewalk Ends' by Shel Silverstein when I was a child for all its wonder and absurdity and pure fun. And what a question...what lies beyond the end of the sidewalk, or road, or horizon. What lies beyond? I suppose I can answer that with one word. Svalbard. This land is unlike anything that we have encountered on our travels, both for it's untamed spirit and its fragility. It is a challenging place on the top of the world that demands much, but also rewards greatly. A punishing day at sea, with winds that whip your breath away with a gasp, is rewarded later with the most spectacular glacier that seems to change colour before your eyes. This is a slice of some of the places we've seen thus far on our journey into the arctic and we hope you enjoy! Fair winds, Monique & Drake

Our unboxing of the Eclectic Energy D400 Wind generator.

Our installation of the D400 Wind generator aboard our Westsail 42 sailboat Paragon.

It's been several months since we've installed the Eclectic Energy D400 Wind Generator and it's time to give you some of our thoughts about it, plus a look under the hood to see how we ran the wiring aboard Paragon.

Watch the new trailer for DrakeParagon: Season 5. Weekly episodes starting in December.

Three years in the making and all of our preparation led to this moment...pushing off for Svalbard! 1100 nautical miles held more than a few surprises as the weather window we had hoped for evaporated. Join us on the beginning of this epic journey! We have been working very hard on our next Greenland episode, but it's not ready yet. So we interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you this more recent recording.

Hi everyone, For the past few days Drake has been resting and recuperating after extensive dental surgery. He hasn't been able to edit this week's episode about our voyaging in Greenland. Instead of going for another week without publishing a new video, here's one of our many real time updates that we posted on our Patreon page just a week after we filmed it. This was originally a BONUS real time video for our Patrons. To see more videos like this join our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/DrakeParagon When we pushed off from Stornoway to sail to Faroe everything was going well, that is until we started using the jib. As you saw in the last video, the port side jib winch seized within the first hour or two of our sail making it impossible to use. We were close enough that turning around would have been simple, but that was something that neither of us really wanted to do. The weather had not been cooperating and our intended push off date of 1 May had come and gone and now, nearly two weeks later (with some very expensive transient rates) we were eager to leave. Drake ended up running the port side jib sheet across the cockpit and over to the starboard side winch which worked well enough for our 285 nautical mile sail to Faroe, but was definitely not a long term solution. The winch needed to be serviced and we were crossing our fingers that there was no irreparable damage. Therefore, on a sunny day in Faroe Drake, with a little help from our friends, serviced our Barient winch and filmed the whole process for you guys. A big thank you to Alfy from the YouTube channel Life is Like Sailing for his great video about winch maintenance. If you haven't seen his videos then you're in for a treat. Check out his channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/bcsailor... Without further ado, let's jump in to the video!

Where are we? What are we doing? What are our plans for the future...and the channel?

Some places stop us in our tracks and leave us speechless. Ikerasasuaq, or Prince Christian Sound, on the southern tip of Greenland is such a place. This is a postcard video of our sail through this magnificent fjord. To see the full episode click on the link: https://youtu.be/ltV9RALsFK0