Victory Day over a three-week passage against the wind—and Victory Day on Easter Island. Transmitted by satellite
The Cap says, “Write a post.”
“But how am I supposed to write when we can’t charge the computer?” There’s no electricity—it’s been overcast for three days. And we don’t run the engine; we’re sailors, after all....
And then it turned out that yesterday’s post, written during the storm and sent after a hard day, went out with typos and unnecessary details....
That finished off my lyrical mood altogether.
Yoo-hooo! We have finally dropped anchor in Anakena Bay on Easter Island. We can see almost exactly the same scene as the first settlers did a thousand years ago. We actually get a better view—the statues have been added since then, though they’re standing with their backs to us. Evidently they don’t know we’ve arrived.
The night in the ocean off Easter Island’s shores passed peacefully for the crew and busily for the captain. At 5 a.m. we hove to no longer, set a small staysail and a scrap of genoa, and headed back towards the island. The wind changed as promised, and once again we are sailing straight into it—Hurrraaah! How wonderful to have some stability in life. Crossing the Atlantic is easier—the wind blows from astern there. But after 22 days of going against the grain out here, everyone is a little weary—both the old sea dogs and the pups :).
The same warship escorted us into Anakena Bay. No sooner had we dropped anchor than a white vehicle came racing up and, under the guise of “Radio Easter,” began calling us. The cordial radio operator congratulated us on our arrival and told us we could stay peacefully for as long as we liked. Then he hospitably informed us that we were not allowed to go ashore....
“Come to the village to clear in when the wind changes. That will be at the weekend, when nobody is working.”
So for now, we are viewing the statues from behind. Fresh provisions are out of the question.
The crew celebrated our victory over the 22-day passage against the wind at the same time as Victory Day. A gift from our friend Lena in Panama proved very timely—a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne (!). Dear Lena, thank you—we found a worthy occasion :). We don’t know who Clicquot was, but his widow is absolutely wonderful!
We always celebrate Victory Day with wartime songs playing from the speakers from early morning, a festive lunch, and war films. Today we watched Battle for Sevastopol. This evening it will be Only “Old Men” Are Going into Battle.
As a child, I regretted not having been in the war.... I’d have shown them!—that is what foolish little children and teenagers have thought since the days of primitive communal society.
.... But at fifteen, I touched the Great Patriotic War with my own hands—on a Memory Watch expedition near Smolensk. And ever since, I have cried over war films. You would cry too if you had walked through those forests, noticing square depressions every 300 metres.... Dozens of mass graves and hundreds of human remains passed through our half-childish hands as we searched for identification capsules. When you wash thirty skulls a day with your own little hands—skulls with young teeth and a perfectly round bullet hole—war ceases to be history.
It is strange that anyone still wants to wage war. The greatest tribute to the fallen is not a display of military might at parades, nor a readiness to “show our enemies what’s what.” The main thing is to PRESERVE PEACE.
Here on Easter Island it is still 9 May, and we are in a Victory Day mood. Nastya, our sailor and cook, has made festive blini. We are listening to Vysotsky and pondering how we might secretly land tomorrow to visit the moai statues without falling into the clutches of Chilean justice.
Greetings to everyone from the edge of the world!