Latest News from On Board. Passage to Easter Island. Day 6

Latest news from on board. Passage to Easter Island, Day 6. Sent via satellite. Hence the solid block of text. BUT! Anyway, friends. The crew of the round-the-world yacht Lady Mary have gone mad. The captain is reading about La Pérouse’s voyage. And here is what is on our agenda today: for six months, the esteemed La Pérouse searched the Pacific for the Southern Continent (in those days, no one imagined that Antarctica lay so far south). During the Southern Hemisphere cyclone season, La Pérouse headed north to discover the strait between Sakhalin and Japan. And then south again, to search for the continent. At this point in the story, a cunning plan was born in the cap’s mind. It goes like this: This year we make it to Tahiti. For the Southern Hemisphere cyclone season, we head even farther south. And then, little by little, zigzagging along the 37th parallel (which lies outside the cyclone zone), we search for Maria Theresa Reef, also known as Tabor Island. Why certain lunatics feel the need to search for Maria Theresa Reef (myself included, by the way): — A dream since the age of eight. — Treacherous Wikipedia and certain Russian-language sources claim that this uninhabited island does not exist. Supposedly, people simply did not know that before. But! On our 2005 chart, the one hanging in the Gingerbread House, the island is marked. What’s more, this reef also appears on British Admiralty NAUTICAL charts from 2012 and on New Zealand electronic nautical charts from the 2010s. Question: why is it there if it sort of isn’t? — So what about our circumnavigation? — I say. — We’re only popping down there for the cyclone season! Then we’ll come back again. It’s only a 4,500-nautical-mile detour (9,000 kilometres). Well, and after the 37th parallel, it makes more sense to head not for the equator but for Cape Horn. Anyway, mums, sit down for the moment and have some mint tea. We’re only joking for now. — Accordingly (I quote the cap), if we leave Tahiti in November 2018, before the cyclones begin, then we should probably be in Tierra del Fuego by New Year. — But that’s not the main thing (I continue quoting the cap). We could go to Antarctica in January, Marinochka! Peak season! I think I’ll go and make myself some mint tea too. I must show this to Sergei Golomolzin, an extraordinary man who told me a couple of years ago: — We have to go to Antarctica! There are 50-metre waves in the Roaring Sixties—50 metres! Can you imagine how amazing it would be to see that! And on the Pacific side of Antarctica, once every so many years, some extraordinary volcano erupts and throws special gemstones up onto the surface of the southern continent. Heroic Sergei was trying to persuade me, the mother hen, to see all this with my own eyes. Anyway, even then I had my doubts about whether I needed to go there. After reading Two Captains and the story of Scott’s expedition, I decided that nothing on earth could induce me to go to either the Arctic or Antarctica. And back then, at twelve, I was a very brave girl—not like now. Meanwhile, the cap went on: — At 22 degrees south latitude and 154 degrees west longitude lies an atoll called Maria. — So now every island beginning with M has to be personally checked against Jules and Verne? — Yep. That’s all from me. This cry from the heart was written in the Pacific Ocean, en route to Easter Island, at 6 degrees south latitude and 93 degrees west longitude. We are now at 6°40′ S, 93°05′ W. We are close-hauled on port tack, with winds of 17–20 knots and 2.5–3-metre head seas. We are closing on Easter Island by 100 nautical miles a day. Only 1,540 miles to go.