28 September. The headwind is strengthening. During the night it will become storm-force, though soon after that it should turn into a following wind. And the very same wind from behind and from ahead are two completely different weather stories. Every time we reef the sails we catch 25 knots from astern for a few minutes and enjoy it. We expect to outrun the strongest part of the system and get no more than about 35 knots (17–18 metres per second). We still somehow have to work our way off on the building sea. Not much fun — you can easily smash your teeth against the companionway. We can sail only east. During the day we lost the couple of minutes of latitude we had gained, though we added longitude.
Four days ago the entire crew started doing exercises, so our chances of not forgetting how to walk have soared to cosmic heights :). The other day Ladunya wrote a record number of letters to her friends and grandmothers. She and I are actively dreaming about what we will build, repair and decorate in our wonderful Gingerbread House when we return to Altai. The plans are Napoleonic! Anyone who comes to visit us next summer will not recognise either the house or the garden… You get the idea: these thoughts of land keep our spirits up in bad weather.
Food supplies
There is no chance of starving for another five months or so. About three days ago, in honour of a favourable wind, we managed to arrange a varied breakfast that actually stayed on the rubber tablecloth instead of, as usual, being wedged individually between knees, backsides and sofa cushions. Sandwiches with cheese and sausage with horseradish, oatmeal, sir, Thai tea with condensed milk, fruit and candied ginger sweets. We cut open a watermelon — it had survived and was wonderfully sweet! We still have one yoghurt, a pineapple, two and a half boxes of apples, a pile of pumpkins, some tomatoes and carrots, potatoes, beetroot, oranges and mandarins, kiwis, lemons, garlic, a half-alive cucumber and a bag and a half of onions. Plenty of snacks, a middling amount of cheese and little sausage. Next will come nuts, dried fruit and numerous tins, including those given to us by Vasily Senatorov and the yacht Esmeralda, which took part in the Golden Globe round-the-world race. Once we reach warmer water we will start fishing. When it is cold, wet, salty and windy, you do not really feel like thinking about it.
What is around us before the storm
There is no one above the grey ocean or in its depths except a few petrels. Their sharp black silhouettes slice through the murky air just above the waves. I wonder: are these the same fellows that have followed us all the way from Tasmania, or does the yacht get handed over each day from one pair of bird wings to another? We have not seen a single whale or dolphin since Tasmania. By dusk everything sinks into fog, and the petrels start flying backside-first when they are going against the wind, just like us. The laptop is risking its life while I write this post. So, see you when the wind is behind us.
Blowing hard, but from behind
29 September. The wind increase did not become a full storm: up to 35 knots. We managed to escape the forties. There were several miserable hours with the wind on the nose, and by morning it backed around from the west. And I can tell you that 35 knots of almost-following wind is a hundred times gentler than 20 knots on the nose. With the mainsail reefed down as far as it would go and a tiny staysail, we flew into the thirties. Hooray!!! Sunshine and a high sea. The deckhand was reading and drawing; now she is making herself apple purée. Chewing anything hurts our little mermaid — if only we can make it to civilisation. We are heading north-east. The equator is less than a month away, then another three or four weeks to Tahiti. After that we will decide which shore of the Pacific gives us the best chance of getting home by spring.
After everything the family and crew have been through, from the tropics to polar latitudes in these one and a half circumnavigations, we will come home different… After four and a half years apart, returning home occupies my thoughts more than anything else. To truly understand homesickness, apparently you need to be forced to stay away from your homeland for at least a year. Or perhaps five. That is what it will be for us. What will it be like? Who will be there beside us? How long will our resolve last? What project will come next? There are more questions than answers.
An albatross gleams white in the arch of the evening rainbow. A southerly wind has brought cooler air. The heater does not work, but it is bearable without it now; our ears no longer freeze at night. We wish everyone new horizons! Sent by satellite from 39°38' S, 173°13' W.
Thank you for your comments on our reports. When the shore team sends them to us, the loneliness becomes more transparent. Today we received some very warm messages through the website. Lenochka Kaminskaya, Tatyana Dmitrieva — I want to hug you. And enormous thanks to everyone who contributes to the success of the expedition through YooMoney and PayPal! To see where we are right now, open the Route tab. It shows our track from the Rockstar Iridium 360 tracker provided by MVS Telecom.