10 degrees from the Antarctic Circle. Day 58. For days now, Andryukha has been trying to talk us into dropping 3 degrees farther south and taking just a tiny peek into the 60s. I hold him back, grumbling: “Are we completely cuckoo, making a 300-mile detour?!” “Weeell,” says the captain, “we are cuckoo, actually.”
It turns out we’ve already spent a week sailing level with or south of Cape Horn’s latitude. And we entered the Furious Fifties 17 days ago. In different books, we’ve already come across three names for the latitudes in the 50s: furious, raging, and stormy. Is this a case of something being lost in translation?
Despite our approach to land, no new birds have begun circling above the masts. As before, we regularly see a few petrels and the occasional albatross. And there is still no sign of any wildlife in the ocean itself, although these cold waters ought to be teeming with it. Especially the mighty Humboldt Current, which we recently entered. It flows from Antarctica all along the west coast of the South American continent and disperses around the Galápagos Islands. It is thanks to this current that there are penguins on the equatorial archipelago and along nearly the entire coast of the mainland. That’s what they’re called: Humboldt penguins.
Meanwhile, a steady 35-knot wind is blowing (around 18 metres per second), and under a small jib Lady Mary is making 5–6 knots. The water and outside air are both around 5–7°C. We haven’t encountered any icebergs. Taking down the mainsail for the night was something of a storm adventure: whistling, bucking, clouds, rain, spray and squeals. Beautiful! For deck work, we now put on two pairs of trousers underneath our waterproofs. Huge swells roll across the ocean, some of them flying over the coachroof. Spray fans out across the water, and the crests are breaking. The leeward side periodically scoops up water. We really ought to film it, but my body is doing everything it can to postpone the moment when I have to go out on deck. The only properly functioning piece of filming equipment we have left is the phone camera. The camera’s short lens has jammed, while the big telephoto lens has picked up so much dust inside, between the elements, that filming video is pointless and merciless—the whole screen is covered in large dark spots.
Cape Horn is about 250 miles away on our overall course. The wind is directly astern, but it is difficult to hold a dead run, so first we make a tack northward, which lengthens the route. During the heater’s hour-long morning run, the temperature in the wheelhouse rose from 10°C to 15.5°C. Warm already. Sleeping was difficult: the considerable heel forced me to fight for space on the narrow watch berth. Waves slammed into the hull and then cascaded in waterfalls overhead. Every time, in my half-sleep, one thought rang out: thank goodness we simply taped over the hatches above the wheelhouse. Once we reach the tropics, we’ll deal with the opposite problem, but for now we’re not worrying—the important thing is that nothing is dripping onto our heads. Strangely, despite the overall sense of dampness, with condensation on the hatches and streams running down the walls, the air is becoming ever drier. Your skin reacts by producing wrinkles whose existence you never even suspected in the tropics. My nose is half blocked. Why can’t all that condensation soak into the crew’s bodies? But no—it only goes into our bedding and the bulkheads.
Yesterday we finally had a bath day, and in honour of the occasion I cut my own hair. Not for the first time, either. What do you think the motivation was? To use less fresh water. And less hair dye. And to stop it tangling. Life on a permanent expedition gradually changes you inside and out. Compared with myself five years ago, let alone ten, I feel I’ve become a completely different person, and it isn’t just about age.
Yesterday we watched The Lord of the Rings. I’m not particularly fond of that film, but I had to give in to popular demand. The film more or less ended with the idea that after a journey and adventures like that, you can never return to your old life, to the domestic comfort of your native nest. People ask us about this a lot: when are we planning to come home, and what then? We’re unlikely to settle down in the Gingerbread House or anywhere else. More likely, we’ll drop in from time to time, rest by our beloved hearth, visit our mothers, spend time with those close to us. We dream that at last we’ll be able to fly home more often than once every three years. We try not to think about how much we miss home and our loved ones. Because if we dwell on it too long, a feeling of hopelessness sets in, and three-quarters of the crew want to cry.
For now, on the 58th day of the passage, we’re already desperate to arrive. The girls and I will definitely press our lips to the cold ground of Tierra del Fuego. Andryukha is ready to turn straight for Antarctica and linger for another couple of weeks, but we are standing our ground, using food as our argument. We tell him the crew will mutiny if forced to eat nothing but beans and pasta. But really, he’s only testing us to see what matters more: the romance of the polar regions or grub. For us, of course, grub matters more.
The captain himself wants to get to Ushuaia already, too—he’s just good at hiding it. And another very happy event awaits us there: a reunion with close friends from Colombia. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that everything works out for them now, with work and with the chance to travel from the north of South America all the way to its southern tip. More than a year ago, we stayed at their home in Bogotá, and then sailed together from Panama on a week-long yacht trip around the Las Perlas Islands. It was the best time we’ve ever had cruising on a yacht. They’ll also bring the young sailor a gift ordered from Father Frost: Russian-language schoolbooks.
While writing this post, I’ve felt the urge about five times to grab the camera and at least film the waves through the window. But my lazy mind says that first I need to secure the laptop somewhere so it doesn’t go flying, retrieve the slipper that has rolled to the other side of the wheelhouse, crawl out from under the sleeping bag... So I didn’t crawl anywhere. I’m sitting here in my den, finishing this post. We’ll be getting online soon, connecting through the satellite modem to email and the weather charts. We are monitoring the forecasts carefully as we approach the Horn. So far, they’re promising 35 knots of viento en popa—wind up the bum, in other words. The captain is ready to connect to outer space right now. We hope our daughter has already sent us your comments. Thank you for them, friends! Your support brings us so much joy! Hugs from position 56.20S 75.00W.
And a separate, heartfelt thank-you to you, our dear people who have become members of our shore team, for sustaining the expedition through PayPal.me/TravelyFamily. Our thanks to Yulia V. from Moscow, Anton T. from Novosibirsk, Vladimir P. from Moscow, Vladimir D. from Tolyatti, Roman A. from Tyumen, and Irina B. from St Petersburg!
May everyone have dependable support back home!