Day 64 in isolation.
Today we are sitting in the wheelhouse, sipping tea and watching a Utopia Show episode about the Bermuda Triangle with the whole crew — recommended, by the way, to anyone who loves the paranormal or subscribes to conspiracy theories.
And then, while the yacht is perfectly healthy and the wind is steady — fifteen knots close-hauled — she suddenly changes course and turns her stern toward the trade wind.
What bliss it is to sail with the wind instead of fighting against it! The boat instantly settles onto rails like a tram, and almost all the rolling and heel disappear.
At that particular moment, however, the bliss meant that for no obvious reason we were turning west instead of north-east, and something strange lay behind this performance.
There you are: never watch programmes about the Bermuda Triangle first thing in the morning. Supernatural things immediately start happening.
We rushed onto deck.
We had a tail
A sturdy two-by-two-metre raft covered in fine black mesh was dragging behind us. Attached to it by a thick rope was either a lamp or a marker buoy with two small solar panels beneath glass and the number G 625041.
We had seen an identical raft and a broken buoy washed ashore on Suwarrow Atoll. Incidentally, neither this raft nor the buoy was overgrown with weed or shells. It looked as though they had been launched only yesterday.
About five metres behind the floating structure we could make out another dark square, attached by line and completely submerged.
We immediately felt like the drivers of a steam locomotive with several railway carriages trailing behind it. Beneath the “carriages” flashed a school of silver fish. A two-metre grey shark circled the whole construction. It looked as though the fish were sheltering in the raft's shadow while the shark was tending its flock.
And the captain had to dive into this shepherd and its flock.
We reduced speed by taking down the large headsail and leaving only the mainsail.
The skipper put on his super-agent outfit: blue underpants covered in daisies and a sharp knife in a black sheath strapped to his leg. He added fins and mask and jumped into the ocean.
The girls monitored the shark and, following the captain's instructions, turned the wheel from side to side. The rope was jammed solidly between the rudder blade and the hull.
Andrey spent about half an hour trying to free it. During that time he was stung three times by a jellyfish. The villain left blue threads of tentacle and burning stripes across his neck and back.
We wiped the stings with vinegar, put a long-sleeved top on him and dropped the mainsail because the yacht was still moving too fast for underwater work.
Andrey jumped into the sea again.
The shark continued circling, never going more than twenty metres away and never coming closer than five. I was afraid that, among the tangle of four ropes — two from the raft and two securing the captain — a wave would throw him against the windvane steering gear, the ladder or some other hard part of the yacht.
The children worried more about the shark, especially after Andrey acquired several bleeding scratches.
The captain simply kept doing the job.
The line had to be cut. First the raft and its trailer fell away. The buoy took more work: simply cutting the rope was not enough. We still had to free the rudder blade so that it could turn normally. Until then the wheel was extremely hard to move.
An hour after the adventure began, Andrey climbed back onto deck. He was rinsed with fresh water, covered in vinegar, made to drink two litres of water, given an antihistamine and sent to the cabin to lie down.
The stung areas were burning. Waves of weakness and nausea continued.
An hour later the fishing rod rattled. A small tuna was on the hook. The captain cleaned it, the first mate fried steaks, and there was dinner.
In the evening the skipper is resting, I am writing, and the deckhand and sailor are doing lessons or working with the sails — mostly the first mate and sailor on the latter.
The wind is preparing to strengthen and turn against us.
Those are the main events of the day.
There are about 300 miles to our point beyond the equator. In three days we should reach it and, from there, turn onto the final straight toward Tahiti.
Ever since Tasmania we have been one and a half to two times behind schedule. The log shows that we are covering about the same multiple of the great-circle distance. We should already be in Tahiti, yet at this pace it is still about a month away.
Sent by satellite from 3°11′ S, 159°36′ W.
Any ideas, guys?
The photograph is admittedly poor, but perhaps one of you knows what these structures are: a raft with a submerged trailer and a buoy powered by solar panels?
Today another identical one floated past on our port side. Two birds were resting on it.
We guessed that perhaps rafts like these are used to study ocean currents. The design is terrible, though, and needs improvement. The thing travels through the sea like a pair of nunchucks, with ropes waiting to catch propellers and rudders. What chance does it have of staying intact?
We are waiting for your comments. Perhaps you can shed light on this unidentified floating object, number G 625041.
And we are always delighted by your comments. Those of you who write letters and comments have been our only conversation partners for three months in a row.
Enormous thanks and hugs from the bluest sea to Dmitry S., Natalia D., Alexander V., Mikhail K., Sergey P., Evgeny T., Vladimir Zh., Nikolai A. and the owner of card 076 for supporting the expedition budget and the crew's morale through YooMoney and PayPal.
Welcome to the team!
To see where we are now, visit travely-family.com and open the Route tab. It shows Lady Mary's track from the Rockstar Iridium 360 tracker provided by MVS Telecom. If you zoom in on today's track, you will see where we stopped and drew a loop. That is the place where we found the raft and buoy.