Day 41
13 October — though for you it is already the 14th. There has been no wind since early morning, so we are sorting through lockers, taking out tropical clothes and putting the warm gear away until the flight home. We may still need warm everyday clothes if, after Tahiti, we go to Korea or — which is almost unrealistic — Vladivostok.
We celebrated Lady Mary's birthday with freshly baked bread. Bread has become a festive dish because in the cold latitudes there was no point making dough: it simply would not rise. Now it rises in the sun within an hour. The boat smells warmly of baking. Like home.
In our former life we used to programme an electric bread maker overnight so that its magical smell would wake us before the alarm clock. The darkness of a winter morning became kinder as Nastya got ready for school… How long ago that was. How quickly the years fly.
14 October
— Coconut! Hooray! A coconut! our crazy crew greeted the morning on deck at 05:40.
A hefty coconut floated past the starboard side. Where did you come from, wanderer? The nearest land, Palmerston Atoll, is almost 170 miles to the north; Rarotonga, the capital of the Cook Islands, is about 200 miles east. Yesterday Rarotonga was abeam. Around one and a half thousand people live there, speaking Polynesian languages and English.
Well, they can carry on living there. Lady Mary is sailing past.
Palmerston lies directly on our course, but we will pass it too — and keep farther offshore. As the captain says: — For now, we do not need anyone to discover us.
So, friends, there has been no point looking for us on MarineTraffic for more than forty days: we are sailing with AIS switched off. You can still follow Lady Mary's position on our website under the Route tab, where our track is transmitted by the Rockstar Iridium 360 tracker provided by MVS Telecom.
At five this morning a five-metre-per-second breeze finally arrived. Thanks to it we covered 35 miles during the last 24 hours, most of them this morning.
We are behind schedule
The deckhand and I worked that out today. We had thought we would reach Suwarrow Atoll by 17 August. According to the plan, our twentieth wedding anniversary was supposed to catch up with the captain and me there, right in a lagoon full of coconuts. But no: with these winds we will be two days late at best, or fly straight past at worst :).
Ah well, there will be no garlands of fresh orchids at our wedding anniversary. Instead there will be a very, very blue sea, completely empty apart from three pilot fish that the captain and deckhand attracted yesterday while swimming.
For a week we have been surprised by one thing: the birds, petrels and albatrosses that always followed the yacht in the Southern Ocean stayed behind there. Nobody follows the boat now. At night only stars and satellites float through the sky; by day there are beautiful cumulus clouds.
But what stars, guys! Venus shines in Scorpius before the Southern Cross has risen. The captain explains the map of the night sky to us, while directly overhead the Moon rocks above the mast like a slice of orange. Land is not very far away, but the birds do not reach us. We keep hoping to see frigatebirds or tropicbirds, yet the sky remains empty.
Swimming season is open!
Of course we swam in Western Australia, but only while anchored. The last time we swam from the boat while moving was almost three years ago. Then we went into cold waters and never again had the sort of heat that makes you want to dive into the ocean on a rope behind the yacht.
The heat happened to arrive with a calm. We tied a fender to a long line — one of those long inflatable things placed between a hull and a quay. The swimmers put on masks, Andrey took a scraper, and both splashed into the water. Ladunya played, dived and stood on the rope.
When the yacht is making way, you cannot swim like that. Swimmers put on a climbing harness clipped by carabiner to the line, then race along behind the yacht like a water-skier who has fallen over.
The captain cleaned part of the hull, and three striped fish swam over to feed on algae loosened from the bottom. During the swim the first mate had an important job: from the stern, she watched to make sure sharks did not arrive after the fish and eat half the crew. They did not. Life was a success.
It became a success in general as soon as we entered the warmth.
A big difference
I am lying on deck in a swimsuit under the tropical awning we have just rigged and say: — Guys, this is practically a resort!
The captain has hung a net for fruit and put grapefruit, mandarins and lemons in it. — Practically interior design!
The sailor and deckhand came over to inspect the tropical deck design. Together we concluded that a circumnavigation through the tropics and a circumnavigation around the planet's southern capes are as far apart as a picnic in the countryside and mountaineering.
We have come down from the harsh mountains for a picnic.
Only ten of the Earth's 360 meridians on our route through the great capes and Antarctica fall within the tropics. It feels slightly strange, almost like déjà vu or a memory from a former life.
Tomorrow the wind should strengthen and the promised land should begin moving closer. For now the possible short stop is 440 miles away — four and a half days at Lady Mary's average cruising pace of 100 miles a day.
Yesterday we received another batch of your comments. Thank you, dear friends! We love you and rejoice over every message like children. The deckhand always reads the comments aloud — that is officially her job. Without internet we cannot reply to everyone yet, but we already recognise and love each of our regular commenters.
Hugs from tropical summer and day 41 at sea. Sent by satellite from 20°36′ S, 163°07′ W.
Enormous thanks to everyone who sent birthday gifts to Lady Mary and contributed to the ship's fund through YooMoney and PayPal. Thank you for being with us!