My 2019 North West Passage crew members.
ERIC
Eric learned how to sail when he was 5 years old (or 6.. he’s not sure, who’s counting anyway) in Auvergne, France, a very well-known region of France for its cheeses, mountains and the fact of being completely land locked. He often tells people he’s from Brittany, France because the sailing thing is much easier to explain and people know where it is, or at least, have heard of it.
Later in his life he accidentally became a computer scientist, which basically means that he talks to computers. Computers don’t talk back to him though, because let’s face reality, the future is not totally here yet. This work allowed him to travel and live in different places. For some years in California he got to experience the joy, and the profound endless maintenance work, of sailboat ownership. Because living aboard was too easy in sunny Los Angeles, he decided to move to sunny Seattle (or so he thought..). This is in this latest location, the dear to our heart Washington State, where he was lucky enough to know a guy who knew another one who had met Olivier. All this led to this whole adventure.
His geeky side makes him dream about sailboats with fully automated, complex electronic sensors, all computerized decision-making and high-end telecommunications systems;
which is why he chose to attempt not one but two North West Passages on a 33 years old wooden sailboat on which the three highest tech pieces of equipment are a radar from the 80s, a fully electronic depth sounder (a recent addition) and Eric’s cellphone.
JOSHUA WHEELER.
Joshua Wheeler, originally from Central New York, now hails from Seattle, Washington, where he lives aboard and single-hands a Pacific Seacraft Flicka 20 sailboat.
Josh has a 50-Ton Master and a 100-Ton Near-Coastal OUPV License. He reads and studies anything nautical and adventurous he can get his hands on, and has his own ambitions of being an experiential maritime writer. In other words, he’s a boat geek.
When the opportunity to aid in delivering Breskell from Newfoundland to Washington via the Northwest Passage arose, he did not hesitate to seize it. A stranger on a strange boat, sailing through a strange land, Josh is the only non-French speaker aboard. “C’est la vie.”
Regardless of the communication challenges as a member of Breskell’s crew, he has extended his sailing experience far beyond his normal stomping grounds of the Pacific Northwest.
Josh thanks Olivier and the rest of the crew, Eric and Leila, for the incredible educational experience.
For more information about Josh, please check out his Facebook page: Sailing With Josh, and his blog: www.sailingwithjosh.com
LEILA
Leila lives and works in Paris, in the cinema industry, when she’s not traveling in the Azores islands or in Alaska. For her, it’s a dream came true, to have the opportunity to go back to Alaska by the North West Passage… A dream born in 2017, when she saw for the first time a beautiful movie made by the french director Remi Chayé called “Tout en haut du monde” .
Leila loves adventure, the sea and wooden boats. She feels very grateful to be part of this one… She ‘ll try her best to feed the crew in order to give them the necessary strength and a good moral along the next two months and a half!
My 2017-2018 North West Passage crew members.
The amazing “DISKO” teaser introducing my blog was done by Dominic Joyce . A filmmaker based in London
Please take some time to enjoy his site and his beautiful documentary at :
Amazing people. They sure know how to take pictures. They are also ready to take some pretty damned cold swim for that perfect shot…
Right from whales territory…
…or from drones they fly around with the albatross…
They even took a swim in icy water to play with their tools
Meet with these talented artists onboard Breskell
Stefan Andrew is an underwater film maker. He is also a biologist and an educator as well as a drone flyer.
The beautiful woman swimming and playing in frigid Greenland waters in a previous picture with a red drone is Kiki Bosh. A “free diver” in icy water…
The other member of this amazing underwater team is Kingsley Griffin also an underwater film maker. As a biologist, he has taken many samples of waters and algae around Breskell. His concerns with warming of the northern waters has pushed him to take also many temperature measurements.
A visit at their educational site is a must. From the icy waters of Greenland to some warm waters reefs, amazing pictures of the natural wonders of our beautiful planet are presented. All of those with the same purpose than mine:
“Make our planet great again”