Tierra del Fuego Today

Tierra del Fuego today. Would you like to know what an ordinary diary page looks like when it is not intended for publication, but for internal use? The first mate on honest toil. Reflections at the front entrance to the back door of sailing adventures. Storms in the Drake Passage. The immediate future and the instant present of one particular family expedition. On changing my surname If I were to change my heroic surname, “Klochkova,” to something else, I would choose “Pisarchuk.” Or something along those lines. Because it is high time I tore myself away from writing and did something about the lack of exercise that has descended upon me. Time to shoulder a rucksack and head out into the wilds, into the pampas. Especially since those very pampas—the pampa, that is—are just over the hills. More precisely, beyond the mountains, but the local ones, here in Patagonia. But I, my mouth stuffed with potatoes baked by one of the crew, am once again writing furiously. No sooner have I banged down an iron full stop on one opus than I take up another, then a third... a twenty-eighth. And then the captain says in his commanding velvet voice: “Marinochka, you urgently need to knock something out for the website—nothing’s been published there for a hundred years.” So I abandon an almost finished article about an inhabitant of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago in order to delight the world with this “I-sing-whatever-I-see.” .. The weather has turned Once again, I promise myself that tomorrow I really will lead the vanguard of the hike—the very one that the young sailor and I promised ourselves for our joint birthday. To prove my intentions are serious, I pour tea into a flask, point my trainers towards the forest, and pull my hat down to my eyebrows. Better still, lower—the wind is howling. And off we go, towards the place from which winter creeps down onto the island of Tierra del Fuego. And it creeps down in a curious way, like a layer cake. The mountaintops have been dusted with snow, which stumbled into the gnarled, mysterious forest. The white vanished at once, and the crowns turned October-red (sorry, April-red). The layer below is only just beginning to yellow, while along the shore of the strait the forest has merely toughened into a sturdy green the colour of a pickled cucumber. Tierra del Fuego is truly fiery for now only in the strip between the snow and the yellowing leaves. And what does it all amount to? You can drink tea at the computer too—there it is, the storm drumming on the roof. It has come for two days: 50 knots of wind (25 metres per second) battering the doors and making the metal roof of the yacht club library creak. Getting soaked to the skin in ten metres—that’s this storm for you. Winter is coming (at this point Nastya usually adds: “And the night is dark and full of terrors”). It is unlikely we will set off on our hike tomorrow morning. And running back to the boat is rather frightening too. Looks as though we’ll be spending the night here, doesn’t it? The yacht is secured with six lines in accordance with every canon of solid geometry; she will definitely wait for us all by herself. For half the day, the junior crew members tried to pretend they were doing their lessons or something else useful. By evening, having given up waiting for their parents to emerge from behind the computer, they went into town for ice cream. I had only just spread my fingers across the keyboard when the captain completely forgot that he was the very person who had said, “Go on, write.” The children are out, which means every brilliant thought the captain has can be dispatched directly into my ears, now unburdened by concern for our offspring. And, notably, as we women know how to do, I hear all his flashes of inspiration out of the corner of my ear and even manage to process some of them. Also out of the corner. So far, though, I’m only scraping a C—writing a post while simultaneously immersing the corner of my brain in my husband’s genius. Meanwhile, the captain says: “Marinochka, I’ve worked out how we can put this idea into practice...!” And I just keep writing and nodding. Appreciate the full abyss of mutual patience forged over years of sailing together. The photos here, above and below, are simply Tierra del Fuego, without the downpours or brilliant captains. . Neighbours and guests Most of the yachts have scattered in all directions. Today’s neighbours left for the Falklands and then farther north. By morning, only the locals remained at the pier—those who will spend the winter here at the End of the World. And us, the only outsiders in this local farmyard. The expedition vessel Australis, captained by our friend Ben, disappeared in an unknown direction, only to return later to meet Fyodor Konyukhov. Roxana, fairy godmother to all the local yachtsmen, is already tying the ends of his shore team together with the local expedition boats that have not gone north. And Lady Mary is waiting for her sails and jumping for joy on the waves rolling in from the strait. She pranced in exactly the same way during the previous storm, when the captain flew to Buenos Aires on business and I kept watch, thinking, “Will she break free or won’t she?” Though what is there to think about? With our ten lines, even a hurricane would have to wear itself out before ripping them all loose. We held fast then, and we will hold fast now. It’s just that the rain is lashing down—how are the young sailors going to get back from the ice-cream shop? Girlish secrets Shall I tell you a little secret? While the captain was away on business, the junior crew and I staged days of disobedience. In the evenings we did nothing sensible at all; we simply curled up with our feet on the watch settee, gathered a stash of chocolates and apples, and put on the TV series about Hotel Eleon—you know, the sequel to Kitchen. Andryukha does not allow us to watch it, so that we don’t waste so much as a minute on rubbish. So we have our little conspiracy when Dad isn’t looking. Personally, I think it does no harm to watch rubbish sometimes—well, something amusing about silly situations and relationships, to observe patterns of behaviour in a large monolingual society. We do not have much experience of that at present, so at least we can peep through the keyhole on television. Nastya will not like what I have written here. Dad will certainly read this post. And what will happen to our girlish conspiracy then? For now, we’re taking bets; I’ll report the results later. For her birthday, Roxana, the owner of the pier, took the young sailor to an entertainment centre. Ladunya came back with a pile of presents and happily told us how she and Roxana had caught fish with a special machine and flown in chairs in virtual reality. I wish I could do that too :). With Roxana Tierra del Fuego is being hosed down. The wind drives streams of rain parallel to the ground. If it were not blowing in from the sea but the other way, our girls would fly from town to the pier like Ellie and Toto’s house. As it is, they will have to lie against a horizontal wall of rain, break through it like polar explorers, and then spend an hour warming up in the shower. For some reason they refused to catch a taxi—they want to walk. Andryukha and I have certainly raised them tough! When they get back, we will see how close I was to the truth. The southernmost city in the world has begun to flicker with Friday-night lights. On the ground floor of the yacht club, some sort of cultural event is taking place, not directly connected with grilling steaks. People are giving talks and applauding the speakers. An exhibition centre, no less. And instead of an afterword, I’ll add a thought that has just darted through my head, which, as we remember, is using the corner of its brain to process the captain’s flashes of inspiration. There are a lot of Russian-speaking backpackers and hitchhikers here, at the official end of the earth. Female backpackers and hitchhikers, specifically—not male ones. Girls! We have already met Ira, Stasya and Lida. Yulia is on her way. Spending as little as possible, hitching lifts, staying with people through Couchsurfing. Way to go, girls! I couldn’t do it. Read about them and their adventures in this report . May you all have delightful miracles! Thank you! Our dear friends, thank you so very much for your birthday wishes to both me and the young sailor. We read them all together, aloud, and in fact we are still reading them. How wonderful that we have you! And that you have us :). A huuuge thank-you to Dmitry Samoilov and his company Jonacor Marine, and to Robertas, for their very substantial contribution to the expedition budget. Thanks to their direct involvement, we acquired a new Raymarine masthead wind sensor (the old one was lost in a storm in the Roaring Forties), a set of cables, and a new log (a speed and water-temperature sensor). The captain is waiting for calm weather so he can install the newly purchased equipment at the masthead and connect it to the Raymarine equipment sent earlier). We will install the new log when the yacht is hauled out. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who has sent, and continues to send, gifts to PayPal.me/TravelyFamily! We would so love to give every one of you a big hug. We thank Nina R., Alina N. from Moscow (Novosibirsk), Marina P. from Novosibirsk, Marina D. from Moscow (Zlatoust), Sonya K. from Moscow, Natalia L. from Novosibirsk, Mikhail P. from Zlatoust, Elena V., and Konstantin R. If only you knew how helpful and heart-warming your support is to us! Special kisses from the young sailor :).