A week into the passage from Easter Island to Pitcairn. What happens to vegetables in the ocean, what the young sailor does while everyone else is catching a buoy, and who stands the night watches
We’re on a beam reach (the wind’s coming from the side, that is), but it feels as if we’re beating into it. Why is that? The waves on the beam are still hard work, and the heel means we sleep against the wall. Andryukha keeps crushing me with his wondrous body whenever he isn’t on night watch. Nastka helps out by standing her watches as she should. Today she stayed up until half past two. Then the captain took over. And I’ve had it easy for the second night running. By the time I get up, it’s already reveille throughout the camp, and there’s no watch for me to stand. I make up for it by cooking breakfast.
Meals are an important part of any expedition. The length and weariness of passages elevate eating to the day’s main event. Yesterday Nastya made such a killer borscht that we polished off a four-litre pressure cooker in half an hour without even noticing. I’m writing this now and my mouth is watering. The borscht had not only beetroot in it, but also beet greens, which we’d managed to procure on Easter Island.
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
The morning began rather less magically. The captain suddenly remembered that he’d bought an enormous bunch of green bananas on Easter Island. The saleswoman had been dead set against selling them to the naïve European tourist:
“Whatever do you want those for, dearie? They’re green!”—and she pulled them towards herself.
“That’s just how I need them!”—and dearie pulled the bunch towards himself.
“Nooo, you’ll break your teeth!” the saleswoman refused to give in.
The captain had to embark on a lengthy explanation that he lived aboard a yacht and was about to set off on a two-week passage.
“Aaah! So that’s it. Well, here you are, dearie—take them, bless you!”
Why am I telling you this? The captain remembered the bananas just in time. He and Nastya had stowed the provisions; I’d been busy. And for five days, like the diligent mother of the family I am, I never managed to find a minute to ask what provisions we actually had aboard.
And so, beneath the bananas, we unexpectedly discovered some green tomatoes. Except they aren’t green anymore—they’re rotten. Just the thing to take to a concert by some Osya and Kisa and lob from the back rows. Except these tomatoes had gone off all wrong: they were leaking like a punctured cauldron. In short, Andryukha and I got landed with an hour of sorting through and washing all the provisions, while Nastya, who got up later, couldn’t escape cleaning the bilge. That came as an add-on to the vegetable crates. To mark the occasion, we had spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce for breakfast instead of porridge.
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
By evening, the borscht had washed every class distinction from the crew’s contented faces, and no one gave another thought to bilges or rotten tomatoes. Especially since lively squalls had swept through during the day, with the wind gusting up to 30 knots; we had to help the windvane steer, and it was bitterly cold. Even the captain took pity on me and told me to go below. (In cities, a 30-knot wind prompts a severe-weather warning, and trees and billboards start coming down.)
And the way we ate the borscht is a whole story in itself. The young sailor was given some in the bottom of a small, tall saucepan, and the deck officer had his in a tall container. The captain and I, meanwhile, danced a jig in time with the waves and the cosmic G-forces, trying not to spill half a bowl of borscht. We didn’t spill any. Only the jalapeño sauce ended up all over my shoulders.
In the morning, Laduska embarked on a new life: she wrote out a plan for the day and then threw herself into solving six columns of two-digit addition and subtraction problems. Then she read. After that, she and I made some cheerful chicks out of yarn, and now we have to weave them a nest ). At dinner, we rounded off the educational process with Little Red Riding Hood in English, did the compulsory evening exercises and vowed to repeat the same feat the following day.
But in the morning we ignored every one of yesterday’s vows—the mood just wasn’t right today. The young sailor sat down to weave the chicks a nest out of cardboard strips, but soon got bored. She might have gone off to swat flies, but there aren’t any. So she had no choice but to lie down and read—what else can you do when you’re bored?
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Only one amusing event occurred: out in the ocean, the captain spotted a fishing buoy, a decent one, almost new. So off we rushed, manoeuvring after it through three-metre waves. This sent flour spilling all over the galley floor, and the young sailor meekly sat down to sweep it up. We caught the buoy with the boathook, cleaned the shells off it, and now we’ll use it to suspend the anchor chain above the coral. We already have two like it. When the chain hangs in a garland beneath the surface, it doesn’t snag on the coral heads. Everyone wins. The ocean does too—there’s a little less rubbish in it now.
In celebration, Andryukha put together a rough cut of the film about the Panama Canal, while I’m looking forward to all the remaining polishing work, finishing the vinaigrette one-handed, and simultaneously remembering that today’s post still hasn’t been written.
The nausea is passing; there’s no rolling. Starting with the next report, I’ll begin preparing both myself and you for Pitcairn—I’ve got plenty of frightening stories about it. I’ll tell you all about them :).
We’re two degrees from the Tropic of Capricorn, and it has become considerably warmer. Since we can’t really open the windows, it’s already almost hot in the wheelhouse during the day. It even makes me want to go back to Easter Island, to the cool weather.
There are 520 miles left to Pitcairn. Coordinates: 25°21′ S, 120°30′ W.