Galápagos–Easter Island Passage. Days 4–5

Galápagos–Easter Island passage. Beating into the wind. Days 4–5. Sent via satellite link. At last, we’ve caught the trade winds. The only trouble is that their direction here is strangely almost southerly. The forecast promised winds strengthening to 20 knots. Just in case, the crew stowed away the breakables, and the young sailor and I started putting together a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of Neuschwanstein Castle. The fairy-tale palace from an imported tea tin in the kitchen cupboard of my childhood home. Ever since I was little, I’d tried to find out what this marvel was called so that I could visit it one day. I found out, but still haven’t been there :). Has anyone been, friends? What do you think—is it worth dreaming about? .. The wind is blowing from a much more southerly direction than we would like, making any attempt to live as though we were ashore rather difficult. With the agility of jugglers, we catch plates flying around the galley, and some of us even feel as though they might be getting seasick. While we were taking our evening shower, the poorly secured Mad Hatter fell to the floor, scattering soil from her pot over a square metre of the surrounding area.. With no great enthusiasm, we restored the fugitive to a safe place closer to Alejandro. We’re flying into the night under all four sails, though reefed. Wind 22 knots, close-hauled, speed 5–6 knots (1 knot = 1 nautical mile per hour). Yesterday at dawn, an Ecuadorian shrimp trawler crossed our course; no other vessels. By seven in the evening it’s already pitch-dark, and Pacific plankton winks with little blue lights. Orion, the Southern Cross and even our familiar northern Big Dipper answer from the sky, though the last is bashfully upside down at the very edge of the heavens. .. New sea creatures are appearing. A flying fish bravely leapt onto the deck during the night and gave up the ghost. It was the ordinary kind, grey-blue, only small. The new flying fish are red, small and slender, and when taking off they fan out not only their wing-like fins but also their tails. In the morning, Laduska and I battled it out over a game of chess. At first I gave my opponent so many eager hints that by the end she almost checkmated me. But catching the young sailor off guard, her devious mother managed to force a draw. As for news specific to this passage, I’ve finally sat down to write a book. Along the way, I discovered that I’d already sat down to write three other books, so this is the fourth :). But this one has the best chance of making it to a publisher. Meanwhile, the captain is clearing a blocked head, changing the watermaker filters and sharpening fishhooks. For the second day running, we’re finishing off the fish soup and thanking Neptune that we made canned stew from most of the fish caught the day before yesterday—otherwise we’d surely have burst. Today another acrobat took the hook, but while we were taking down a sail, it bounded away, sticking its tongue out at us. And the roughly 20-kilogram bunch of bananas we bought at Saturday’s market all ripened at once and turned out not to be fruit at all. In fact, they were vegetables. Here around the equator there is a special edible variety of banana. They’re fried or made into chips. Frying and eating that many bananas is beyond us. So we’re slicing the sticky orange-tinted flesh into thin pieces and drying them in the sun. On Easter Island, we’ll sell the chips to the descendants of cannibals :). .. We covered 100 miles in twenty-four hours; 1,633 miles (3,025 km) remain to Easter Island. Coordinates: 05°28′ S, 92°05′ W. Friends, please leave comments and write to us through the website—we read them with such pleasure! We just can’t reply yet.