Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope. Day 26. Do you know why there haven’t been any reports for four days? Oh, or even five? We were so delighted by the calm after three weeks of being tossed around that we enthusiastically set about drying mattresses, sealing windows, cleaning up, baking pies, and sewing dresses for the young sailor’s plush rabbits. And we hardly went near the laptop. Blessed be calm weather! The sun is shining straight onto our Iridium tracker and, apparently, heating the device to cosmic temperatures. Thanks—we’ve moved it into the shade. The wonders of technology! In the heart of the ocean, we learn the temperature on our windowsill from your comments, sent to us by the shore team via satellite email. ...
For two days, the sea and wind died down, and we could even open a hatch or porthole to air out the place. We could wash the walls, make yeast dough, and relocate our pets Alejandro and the Mad Hatter, whose plants had been nearly killed by the South Atlantic. A violent storm knocked them out of their berth, after which they tumbled around in the safest of the heads’ recesses. But the high humidity nearly finished the poor things off. We only just managed to persuade the captain to tape Alejandro’s pot between the windscreen and the radar. And the Mad Hatter aloe, of which only a tiny plant has survived, has now been lashed to a little shelf where we usually keep the sunscreen. How much our pets have endured with us! It would be a shame if they gave up the ghost now. ...
Thanks to the calm, Nastya baked her first loaf of bread. And together with the young sailor, she spent another two days baking potato and cabbage pirozhki. The third day of bliss gradually came to an end, and the crew prepared for the forecast 35-knot wind. But there was a hitch: the waves rose in advance, as they should, while the wind behaved unexpectedly—it arrived weaker and later. The captain did not even go to sleep for a long time, because getting 10–15 knots less than forecast instead of the usual 15–20 knots more was highly suspicious. Gusts of up to 40 knots finally dropped by early this morning. Then the weather cleared again. A three-metre beam sea is shaking us around a little; life among the crew is proceeding steadily—without pies, but also without the usual ordeal. ...
Today we finally received a whole batch of comments on several reports at once. Hurrraaaay! Thank you, it’s so wonderful—the crew have been walking around happily for half the day. There was a comment about the Atlantic hurricane season in light of how unwise it is for us to be sailing there. Just in case, allow me to give you a quick lesson. Hurricane-prone latitudes lie between 10 and 20 degrees south or north. Tropical cyclone season always occurs in summer due to the active evaporation of water heated to 27 degrees Celsius. The vapour comes into conflict with the colder atmospheric air, creating vortices that develop into immensely powerful hurricanes. From December to March, storms move through the Southern Hemisphere; it was to escape them that we headed into high latitudes in the Pacific Ocean ten months ago. Now, from June to September, it is hurricane season in the Northern Hemisphere, while we are in the Southern. Moreover, there are no tropical cyclones at all in the Atlantic south of the equator. At any time of year, leaving the hurricane zone means hanging around near the equator or heading beyond the 20th parallel. Over the past ten months, Lady Mary has not spent a single second in the tropical storm zone and will not be there again for at least another year. As for the Roaring Forties and the Furious Fifties, their temperament depends little on the season. Here there are simply always gale-force winds, with rare periods of calm. Winter is colder and darker, and therefore harsher. We will reach the Cape of Good Hope, also known as the Cape of Storms, in mid-spring, when the winter storms will already have left the area. ...
The electricity from half our solar panels is barely enough to charge the batteries, so we use our gadgets sparingly and cannot yet make a film about Antarctica. There isn’t enough power for the editing process. The wind generator gave up on this kind of life long ago. In Ushuaia, we tried to have it repaired, but the technician pronounced the device dead, with no chance of resurrection. ...
Fewer than 500 miles to Tristan da Cunha—hooray! But the captain considers our chances of landing on the island slim. The archipelago’s only anchorage is on the northern side, which is where the strong wind is coming from. So the 270 Tristan da Cunha islanders may never get to meet us. It would be interesting to see whether they really are as hideous as our unforgettable Jules Verne wrote. Yes, and if you have ever heard the name Tristan da Cunha before, he is most likely the one who told you about it. I’ll have to postpone the story of the islanders until the next report. I promise to overcome my good-weather-induced laziness and send some thoughts to the website tomorrow about the historical background of the world’s most immoderately drinking nation. What I mean is that today’s inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha are considered world champions in whisky consumption. I’m off to write about how they ended up living like that. I have not given up hope of seeing these people with my own eyes in about five days. ...
You can follow the progress of the First Russian Three Great Capes Round-the-World Expedition with Children on our website under the Route tab, where the track from IRIDIUM is displayed. The same map, with the track and weather, is available at bit.ly/iridium360. ...
Many thanks to Evgeny V. and Sergey P. for contributing to the expedition budget through Yasobe.ru/na/TravelyFamily. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has also helped replenish the ship’s kitty through Paypal.Me/TravelyFamily. Friends, thank you for joining our shore team, motivating us, and keeping the crew’s spirits high! We value every one of you very much. We send you hugs and thank you for being there for us! ...
See you in the comments. We read every one of them aloud together, and often one or another of us says something like, “Thank you, kind person! God bless you with good health!” ... Your rays of kindness cross the many thousands of miles separating you from us. May your day be a good one! See you in tomorrow’s report.