Last night we crossed the 153rd meridian, the very meridian from which our west-to-east circumnavigation began three years ago.
What does that mean?
Guys, Lady Mary has sailed around the world.
One and a half times :).
All that remains is to cross our own track — and during the last twenty-four hours we have barely got any closer to it. During today's eightieth daylight period of the passage we actually moved one mile farther away from the goal.
Black clouds are circling us, and the wind beneath them has started circling too. Instead of the north-easterly promised by the forecast, it is blowing from the south at three to six knots — in plain language, a calm that is carrying us north.
The rain behaves the same way. The yacht seems to be under a spell that keeps showers away.
There is apocalypse and darkness on every side: lightning, thunder and grey braids of rain. And in the middle of all that we manage to catch only the drizzle at the tail of one cloud and miss the nose of the next.
We have even been chasing rain under engine — one direction, then another. We caught a little.
We power the yacht down so that if the mast acts as a lightning conductor, the entire electrical system will not burn out.
Here comes another cloud. It is getting dark and the laptop has to be switched off.
What shall we do then? Sing songs.
Two proper showers did happen during the last few days. Somehow they broke the clouds' universal unspoken conspiracy.
The day the first rain in three weeks arrived was a happy one. It washed the salt from the deck and sails. We managed to collect about twenty litres in the tanks and partly wash ourselves.
Since then, though, plenty of water has flowed — all of it past the yacht.
Where are Piglet and I going?
Before the calm there was a half-headwind and a head sea. The yacht gets stuck in the waves and we fall behind schedule.
The weather wanders between hot and very hot. Despite that, most of our time is spent on lessons. Nastya and Lada do schoolwork; Andrey and I do adult lessons.
We watched video from the first days after leaving Tasmania, heading south of New Zealand. That was brutal. It is difficult to imagine a less entertaining pleasure cruise.
No amount of fighting the trade wind compares with that first month.
There are still 200–300 miles to our track crossing, depending on where this wind carries us.
Being stuck one centimetre from the goal is a special test of patience.
For the last couple of days Lady Mary has at least made slightly more progress eastward. Before that we were being driven mercilessly west even while sailing as close to the wind as possible.
We think our joy will know no limits if after Polynesia we turn west and ride the trade winds. We will soon find out whether it is really the resort we imagine.
We are once again discussing the possibility of entering Vladivostok after all. We need to solve the problem of clearing the yacht without paying import tax, and another problem involving ice at the end of winter.
Apart from the final thousand miles through cold weather and against the wind, the entire route should have following winds. That argues in favour of entering our home port.
It is embarrassing to admit: we are Siberians, yet we have never been east of Krasnoyarsk. Half the country remains uncovered.
Dreaming costs nothing, though. Reaching the motherland is still as far away as the Moon — about four months.
The office keeps writing
The deckhand and I sewed two Scheherazade-style masks, just without decorations. We decided to stop there and get another couple of disposable ones ashore.
Then we sat down for lessons.
The fishing rod rattled. The line came back with the hook snapped off.
And so it goes every day.
Our ordinary fish have disappeared somewhere. All that remains are armed raids on the bait.
In pitch darkness we took out the guitar and ukulele. The latter was a birthday gift to Ladunya from her best friend Mila in Australia. It has a cheerful dolphin in Aboriginal style painted on it by Mila herself.
The deckhand can already play a couple of songs on the painted ukulele, though her strumming still needs work.
A garland from the same birthday lies on the table.
The captain picks up the guitar: “And does it really matter what happens later, when the sea calls you…”
Lady Mary was so startled by songs like that that she began moving at 2.5 knots on course. After a day of standing still, that is practically a national holiday.
We hope to crawl there in three or four days. Perhaps the northerly promised in the forecast will finally arrive.
And if not, we will sit in a calm together for another week or two. What are fourteen days compared with eighty? :)
That is how we console ourselves.
Hugs to you all. Thank you for your inspiring comments; they warm souls worn out by the sea.
And special thanks from us to Ksenia A., Dmitry S., Ivan L., Elena W., Vitaly S. and Nikolai A. for supporting the expedition through YooMoney and PayPal.
You are now part of our shore team, friends.
To see where we are now, visit travely-family.com and open the Route tab. It shows Lady Mary's track from the Rockstar Iridium 360 tracker provided by MVS Telecom.
Sent by satellite from 13°54′ S, 152°13′ W.