The Biggest Downside of Sailing Around the World

The biggest downside of sailing around the world. A major key in a minor mood 🙂 “Mum, I dreamed about Polina and Ksyusha again. We went swimming together, and we played too, like this...” That is how the morning has begun for the seventh day running. In the meantime, we have sailed across the ocean, anchored off the islands of Huahine and Raiatea, been soaked by rain and roasted in the sun. And tomorrow we leave French Polynesia for at least several years. It took us a whole heroic five-year plan to reach our meeting with the crew of the round-the-world yacht Blagovestie aboard Teofania. Ever since I read Natasha’s first post about their dinghy capsizing in the surf and thought: now those are brave women! Ever since their daughters once asked, “Mum, do Russians have children?” It was just that all the yachts calling at Polynesia at first had no children aboard. “We do! We exist!” our twelve-year-old Nastya asked us to write to Max, Natasha, Ksyusha and Polina. But back then we were still in the Mediterranean, they were in the Pacific, and the chances of meeting were hardly sky-high... We had begun worrying long before Tahiti: “What if we don’t like each other?”... And then we met, lived side by side for more than a month, and on the day we sailed from Tahiti, after our farewell hugs, I exhaled bitterly: “It would have been better if we hadn’t liked each other!” And so we headed out into the ocean, reading, playing, sailing and anchoring among the reefs. Then, a couple of days ago, we put on the CD of Max’s songs they had given us, and the girls and I found ourselves almost in tears. . After Tahiti It really feels as though we have reached some new turning point. This is where we spent the warmest of months with the crew of Teofania, and deep down we still have not said goodbye to them. This is also where we are leaving the crew of Manaya, our good friends since Easter Island. For seven months we were constantly in touch; after Easter Island, we met again in the Gambier Islands and the Marquesas. They came to rescue us from ciguatera on Nuku Hiva, then dropped by Tahiti to say goodbye. Tomaso and Rosetta are leaving their yacht for cyclone season in the marina on Raiatea, an island we had not planned to visit at all, preferring to call briefly at Bora Bora and tiny Maupiti. Instead, after Tahiti, having spent two days in the south of Raiatea without receiving a reply from the Manaya crew via satellite communications, we set off in disappointment. While we were still sailing close to shore, Nastya strained her eyes through the binoculars and finally spotted Manaya at anchor off the northern coast, a mile and a half away from us. We turned 120 degrees and before long were jumping for joy on deck in time with sixty-five-year-old Tomaso and Rosetta. Since then, we have driven around the island together and gone to the market, climbed Tomaso’s mast, and dined on traditional Swiss dishes (our friends are Swiss). We just didn’t sing songs the way we did with the others. And tomorrow we head farther west, while the Manaya crew fly to Europe. God alone knows whether we will ever meet again. Why does the title mention the biggest downside of sailing around the world? It follows directly from the greatest advantage. On a long cruise around the world, everyone is your friend. And no one is. Those rare people who find their way into your soul, whose hearts beat in time with yours and whose songs share the same rhythm—those people always either sail away or are left astern. Malta, the Caribbean Sea, Colombia, Tahiti—places where our people remain, found and lost over the years of sailing. Experience shows that earnest letters fly to opposite ends of the world only for the first six months or year; after that, everything dwindles to the occasional comment and like on Facebook. And you console yourself with the hope that one day your routes will converge, but that day keeps receding. There is only one family, whom we met in our very first year of sailing, with whom we regularly exchange deep, lengthy letters. And that, alas, is the exception. So there you have it: the biggest downside of sailing around the world, or of life on a long journey, is that the people you love, or have grown to love, are always far away. You are not saying goodbye for ever; after all, there is the internet. But with most of them, you will never again sing to a guitar, your eyes widening in surprise every time Max launches into that very song... the one that comes from your childhood spent hiking and camping. . Instead of a conclusion ) I don’t think the captain will be terribly pleased with my sad post. So I’ll wrap it up. A dreadful heat has descended on Polynesia: from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m., it is over +30 degrees inside the yacht, with 67 percent humidity. I’m off for a dive—it helps with the sadness and stops the body from boiling. How can anyone write anything constructive in a steam room? Friends, from Russia to the Pacific, we miss you soooo much. And, by the way, yes, everyone, please leave comments. While we are at sea, the only things we can read are comments in the Facebook group and letters sent to the special section of our website. We cannot reply personally either. Sorry, guys, for the delays. Wishing everyone true friendship. Our current coordinates: 16 deg. 44 min. south latitude, 151 deg. 29 min. west longitude.