“Wheee-oo!”—an actual whistle came over our radio. “Hey, ship, what are you doing here?” Half an hour earlier, a fishing vessel had appeared on AIS. “Hi! I’m sailing to Australia.” “You’re not fishing, are you?” The man with the French accent sounded slightly tense. “No, no, I’m a sailing yacht.” Judging by the creaking sounds, the other fellow scratched his head. “Ahhh! So you’re not a fisherman? ... Heading for Crozet?” “No, not a fisherman—I’m a sailing yacht. Going via Kerguelen.” “Ah, oh, right then, off you go. Good luck!” The fisherman in the fog brightened up and carried on harvesting the depths of the Southern Ocean. By lunchtime today, we had 160 miles left to the Crozet Islands—the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. The islands are directly on our course, but we’re thinking of passing them by. The fog listened indifferently to our decision and even let through a couple of kilos of diffused sunlight. For the second day running, the wind has been astern, which brings the inconvenience of rolling from wave to wave to the sound of slatting sails. Last night it blew up to 30 knots, and we constantly had to keep our dead run from gybing the sails over to the other side. Now I could do with some sleep, since I’m the chief watchkeeper around here.
How to Make a Dream Come True
The good thing about the ocean is the boredom and monotony. There’s no need to tear yourself between work and meeting interesting people, climbing a mountain, or buying provisions. Trim the sails, cook lunch, and then work to your heart’s content. Yesterday I submitted a long article, and now there’s time to work on the book. A floating office isolated from the world—that’s what freedom aboard a sailing yacht is :). The children study, I write, and the captain takes video courses and edits footage. So no matter how far you run, no one has abolished the office plankton’s share of the ocean’s overall plankton.
At first, I began writing a book about the path to a dream. About how, from childhood onward—from ordinary city life and offices—we came to undertake the first expedition in the Russian-speaking world across the Southern Ocean and Antarctica with children. About the fears and difficulties that nearly wrecked the whole thing, and what helped us hold out. But I realised that if I wrote that kind of book, I wouldn’t reach the present events until page 300. So then I began with the main thing—the Everest of the ocean and Antarctica. And it still turns out that each chapter could have a whole book devoted to it; otherwise there is either too much, or it is all too superficial. What a stumbling block! Should I finish the saga properly—the chronological beginning and the thorny path—or bring the climax straight into the light, the fourth stage of which we are now happily living through? What do you think, dear readers?
Shakespearean Days and French Cheese
The other day we watched a film about Shakespeare—how he wrote Romeo and Juliet and then set about Twelfth Night. Ladunya found plenty in common with her own life experience, since she is currently finishing The Taming of the Shrew. Now she is thinking of seeing how Twelfth Night goes down. The books were given to us by Ksyusha Bruton, the organiser of Shakespeare festivals in South Africa. And it was only thanks to her that I discovered you could read the great playwright even at the age of eight. Meanwhile, Andryukha has brought out “a little piece of South African France on the approach to the Crozet Islands”—vacuum-packed Brie. And now he’s going to gobble it up right here while I tap away at the keys. It’s a shame we have a dry-ship rule aboard during passages, otherwise we would open a bottle from the best wine farm in the world, Tempel Wines. Now that would be delicious! But while under way we do not drink a single drop of alcohol, so the captain is finishing off the Brie with fig jam. Such are the hardships of daily life on the ocean.
The Wizards at Shore Headquarters
People ask us whether we have finally got good-quality internet aboard. No, friends, our internet is the same as ever. We have simply acquired some amazing helpers. Katya and Petya Rogov from Cape Town taught us how to send posts to the website with the proper spacing and headings. For now, Katya is still attaching the photograph manually, but soon it will fly automatically from a secret repository to join the post. It seems to me that software developers are wizards who adjust a parallel world encircling the Earth in rings of secret code. And Katya and Petya are doubly wizards. Their daughter is a little star too; our young sailor now writes her letters. He keeps promising to send one any day now.
Weather in the Southern Ocean
The forecast promises winds strengthening to 25–30 knots. Which means 40 may arrive as well. In the evening we’ll take down the mainsail, and below decks we’ll stow everything that could fly around the saloon. For several nights, the yacht has been gliding over the waves right through the centre of the moon’s path, shimmering very romantically through the fog.
For now, everyone is busy with ordinary things, mainly lessons. We don’t feel like fishing because it’s cold. We’ll have Nastya’s plov for dinner. And we have already finished the Olivier salad. We received a batch of your new comments, which made us very happy, and we send you greetings from 45°33′ south latitude.
You can see us on the map in real time under the “Route” tab, via the Iridium satellite tracker from MVS Telecom.
Friends, thank you for contributing to the expedition’s ship’s fund through PayPal and Yandex.Money.
A huge thank-you to Max and Vera for believing in us and in the dream! You inspire us! May everything go well for you!