The Drake Passage—the whole truth under sail. February 23. The daily grind of a passage is exhausting; half the crew still haven’t found their sea legs, and the waves just keep pounding us. Lady Mary soars up, then crashes back onto the water with such a bang that we constantly want to look beneath the hull to see what on earth is hammering it. Ladunya finished drawing and presented Dad with a card for February 23. She started it back in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, and even ran through the rain to the airfield by herself so she could copy the aeroplane and get “Ushuaia Aero Club” right. She composed a poem about how wonderful and heroic Dad is, and drew a family of penguins on the aeroplane’s wing. But the family peering wide-eyed from the cockpit is no longer penguin—it’s ours, led by the captain. The girls and I look gorgeous in sparkly dresses! ... On the whole, that is exactly how Defender of the Fatherland Day went: in sparkly dresses. First we forgot to congratulate all the men on the holiday—it hardly feels like one at sea. Then Nastya festively conquered the dirty dishes, while I made festive sunny-side-up eggs at Andryukha’s request. Biscuits stood in for cake, and lemons covered in sugar were our delicacy. Boiled corn on the cob and jacket potatoes à la “might-as-well-fill-the-pressure-cooker-if-we’re-cooking-corn-anyway” also turned out very festive. Our celebratory outfits were two hoodies worn one over the other, and our hairstyle was a ponytail. Once we anchor among the ice, we’ll celebrate Defender of the Fatherland Day all over again, only this time with cake and a festive concoction. In the reality of the present day, making anything culinarily complicated is nearly impossible. To be honest, the last time I was this seasick was on the way from the Canaries to Senegal, or perhaps even earlier. It seems Ichthyander has temporarily moved into the Drake Passage and settled in here for good. ...
A steep heel, the wind in our faces, and we’re heading completely the wrong way. This is the absolutely perfect moment for rounding Cape Horn from east to west! The winds have turned just right for those sailing from the Atlantic into the Pacific. But we’re going the other way! We simply cannot break through to our destination; we’re zigzagging in strange directions and have almost reached the longitude of the Horn. Another half a degree and we can count this as our second rounding of the Great Cape, this time in the opposite direction. In three days’ time, the forecast says it will blow 35 knots. Which means, as the old hands around here say, it will actually be 50. And spending those three days slogging along a detour because of the wind, only to be hit by a storm among the icebergs, does not appeal in the slightest. We change tacks; Andryukha pores over the forecast, studying it, pondering it and scrolling it along the timeline. At this rate, there is no way we’ll reach shelter before the storm. The captain seems to sense my anxiety and, during the next tack, decides to motor under three sails. The engine purrs, the yacht prances, and we buoy ourselves with the knowledge that no other Russian-speaking family with children has ever done this. And even worldwide, there are only a handful. So we’re so eager to see penguins that we’re prepared to endure all the delights of the Drake Passage? ...
At night we keep watch: if the wind picks up, we’ll need to drop the mainsail immediately. And some gizmo on the backstay has broken as well. The skipper summoned Nastya on deck and tinkered with something there while Lada and I sprang into action inside the boat—switching on the deck lights, searching for toolboxes and grabbing everything that was flying about. Andrey put off part of the repair until daylight. ...
February 24. A night spent jackknifed on the watch berth. Once an hour, Vysotsky’s “Ballad of Struggle” plays to keep us from relaxing and remind us to glance at the horizon and the instruments. And now for a dose of morning whining into the laptop. This morning my personal mood and state of health are foul. There is no other way to put it. The dry air and damp walls make everything worse. My nose is blocked, my head is heavy, and my skin is drying out. There isn’t enough physical activity; it’s hard to make myself do anything while seasick, but constant lying and sitting have practically given me bedsores. The boat is being tossed about as we battle upwind. We’ve been motoring since yesterday evening; our speed is a good 6–7 knots, but we’re still being set farther east than we need to be. The radar cannot see any icebergs yet, thank God. Yesterday, the temperature inside the yacht fell to a record low of plus 8 degrees at seven in the morning. When the heater stokes the air up to +15, it already feels downright warm. Even at what appears to be a good speed, our first anchorage is still a full 250 miles away. This morning I find myself asking: what the hell for? In my dreams, I’d always imagined that someday we’d arrive on a cruise liner for about 20,000 dollars for all of us, stroll among the penguins, take a good look at the icebergs, crunch through the snow, and then go back—to comfort, and no rolling. But no... Why can’t we just stay at home? Or at least in the tropics or subtropics, like all normal people? ...
Recently I asked Captain Litau whether, during his meridional circumnavigations, there had ever been moments when he wanted to chuck it all to hell and never again... “I think that every time,” Nikolai Andreyevich laughed. So do I—every single time, especially during that month in the Furious Fifties, or here in the Drake, near the Antarctic Circle. ...
Yesterday we covered another wheelhouse window with cling film and tape. These are our makeshift secondary panes. They reduce the amount of condensation running down and theoretically make it warmer. Trying to tape them up while the boat is rolling is even worse than doing it at anchor. We gave the film-skin a facelift wherever it was sticking to the wet glass, pulling the sagging sections towards the frame with tape; now the air gap between the makeshift panes is almost constant. Two front windows and one forward window on the starboard side remain uncovered. The sky is shrouded in low cloud, while the bow cleaves the icy ocean, whipping up dense foam. I’m reading Georgy Karpenko’s book Under Sail to Antarctica, pondering eternity and waiting—when, oh when...
The captain and our young sailor wake up, and things immediately become more cheerful. I’m finishing the chronicles so I can send them while the two of them are engrossed in a game of chess. Yesterday our communications glitch happened again: the modem, or some other mysterious device, swallowed all the letters we’d written, neither releasing them into the world nor returning them to our outbox. This morning we’re reconstructing them so we can send them again. I already long for shore headquarters to send us your comments and letters. Moments like that reeeally lift our spirits. We’re sending hugs to you, friends, from... I want to say, from the very arse end of the world. But that wouldn’t sound very romantic, would it? ...
And enormous thanks to the chief materialisers of great dreams, records and discoveries—those who bolster the expedition’s morale through PayPal.me/TravelyFamily. Our heartfelt thanks to Dmitry S. from Leningrad Region for his active participation and for supporting the project both morally and materially. Thank you to Vladimir D. from Tolyatti, Ksenia S. from St Petersburg, and Vitaly Sh. from Buryatia! Courage and great dreams to everyone!