Lady Mary greets the dawn together with the Land of the Rising Sun.
And over there the cherry blossom is in bloom…
Mmm…
Have you ever seen gardens full of blossoming sakura?
I would very much like to visit Japan.
The cities of a fantastic future do not attract me especially. Ever since my judo days at the “Singtai” club in Zlatoust, I have wanted to enter that eastern magic of traditions, architecture, the philosophy of Buddhist monasteries and different schools.
Of the lands I have not yet seen but have been interested in since childhood, the ones at the top of my list are America around the Great Lakes and Alaska, rural Japan and China, and the former Soviet republics of the Caucasus.
Here farther north — we are now at 28° north — we can already enjoy sunrise without immediately rushing to lower the opaque blinds and the side panel of the awning.
In equatorial and tropical waters, the moment the sun's rosy edge appeared above the sea, passions instantly heated to +29°C by seven in the morning.
Now I happily pull a hoodie over bare shoulders that have slipped out from beneath the blanket.
It is good when it is not hot.
A ray of golden sunlight now brings pleasure instead of: “Oh God, when is this heat going to end?”
Yesterday we test-ran the diesel heater. Everything works.
And the new exhaust pipe, raised level with the top edge of the wheelhouse windows, smells horribly — crossed out — smokes cosily.
About land
At eight in the morning birds begin trilling in the aft cabin.
It is Nastya's alarm.
I send magical vibrations in that direction, intended to prolong the charm and stretch out the sounds.
“I don't even know what I dream about more,” Nastya said yesterday. “A normal shower, a comfortable pillow that doesn't make my neck hurt, or a salad of fresh vegetables…”
I dream about waking to birdsong.
About stepping onto a veranda with a cup of tea while an apple-tree branch looks through the window.
The happiness of sea travel lies in approaching new lands — or well-forgotten old ones.
People who have never lived for months without land somehow think the romance of sea routes lies in their many days of sameness and infinity.
Remember Vysotsky singing that those who love the sea live in expectation of land?
Pure truth.
Like homesickness, you can understand it only after being separated from land for a long time.
People who have never left their homeland for more than a year may not understand that connection.
Sometimes that lack of understanding leaks into comments — both about shore and about homeland.
To understand it, you need to try :).
At lunchtime day 45 of our non-stop passage from the wonderful Polynesian island of Moorea will begin.
What's for lunch aboard the yacht?
The deckhand dug a jar of French sausages of questionable culinary merit out of a locker and decided she wanted hot dogs.
More precisely, sausages baked in dough.
For the ritual consumption she made pastry dough and put it on deck beneath plastic film to rise in the April sun.
Today's weather rapidly reduced suitable dough conditions to zero, so the bowl was moved into the wheelhouse onto a square patch of sunlight from the roof hatch.
The patch kept trying to escape from the bowl, but the sausage rolls, supplemented by apple pies, were wonderful anyway.
Now nobody even wants dinner.
We are cooking a little emergency buckwheat just in case someone becomes hungry around nine in the evening.
After all, our yacht is a territory of healthy living: eat and immediately go to bed.
So the provisioning rear is covered.
We can do our evening exercises.
Communication problems
People are writing that our current position on the Route tab has not updated since 9 April.
At the same time, the Iridium website has the newest point.
The shore team is working on the problem, so everything should be fixed soon.
If you follow us on the map, remember that besides the tracker we give our latest coordinates at the end of every post.
For example, Lady Mary is now approaching Japan from the south-east at 28°36′ N, 137°48′ E.
And for the second evening in a row two silly grey boobies have been trying to settle on the mast or rails for the night.
These birds do not sleep on the water, while the nearest land is more than two hundred miles away.
How did they get so far out?
We wish them a quiet night and a safe journey home.
And the same to everyone who is travelling.
Peace to your home.
Thank you to everyone who stays with us through letters and comments.
We are slowly answering messages.
We suspect that not all our outgoing mail reaches its destination. It happens sometimes: messages miss the satellite mailbox, and when we reach land we occasionally discover lost messages from us to friends and from friends to us.
Enormous thanks to everyone who supports the crew's morale through YooMoney.
Heartfelt thanks to Alexey G., Alexey K., Alexander D. and the owner of card ending 3674.
You are now part of our shore family too.
Sent by satellite on day 44 at sea.
You can find our real-time position and track under the Route tab. It shows the path from the Rockstar Iridium 360 tracker provided by MVS Telecom.