Atlantic Crossing. Days 17–18

Atlantic Crossing. Days 17–18 Yesterday was cool, thanks to the clouds. Of course, on a day like that we get zero electricity, but at least there’s air and shade. The humid heat gave our young sailor prickly heat, and, being out of practice, we were slow to react. Long ago, the Thais taught us to protect a baby’s delicate skin from sweating and rashes with powder. So if you’re taking a child to the tropics, stock up. In Thailand, every supermarket has powders in every colour, size and fragrance. And now our Lada looks like a geisha—white and fair of face and body. Yesterday, a steady wind of about 15 knots suddenly arrived, and we made even progress almost where we needed to go at around 4 knots. It felt as though we were flying, but... [indecent word]... the contrary current has other ideas. We discovered that it’s cold as well: for the first time, the water chills you straight away, rather than after two hours of dangling astern. To assess the relationship between wind and wave strength, Lada decided to wash her hair with shampoo, which meant Mum had to climb into the not particularly calm ocean with her. We didn’t have to dangle from the line for long: our arms grew tired, and the turbulence of the water suddenly began putting up enough resistance to tear a swimmer’s knickers off. After swallowing a little seawater, Mum sent Dad to relieve her with the young sailor, then spent a while wondering when exactly in life the turning point comes that transforms a fearless girl—the worse the test of strength and will, the better—into an ordinary middle-aged woman with no desire whatsoever for anything extreme. Does it happen when children are born? Or is it simply age? Yesterday we saw our first South American fishing vessel. It came over to see whether this yacht, idly flapping her limp sails at dawn, was empty. The captain launched into a flurry of activity on deck, and the fishermen, having traced an arc around us, went on their way. Today, meanwhile, our ark has sailed into a zone of magnetic anomaly :). Our compass course differs from the navigator’s reading by about 30 degrees, and both instruments are working properly. We hope that, despite this, we’ll make landfall where we’re supposed to :). After studying the chart closely, we discovered that the first islands of French Guiana are almost 200 miles closer than Suriname. So we’re not exactly fighting the temptation to go there first, as illegals, reasonably concluding that 270 miles is not 450 :). But Nastya is dreaming of internet access and fresh tomatoes, for which she is prepared to sail even another two hundred miles ;). It’s around six by the ship’s clock. Nastya is frying oladyi for dinner, Lada is doing her hair, while the captain and first mate have polished off a tin of sprats and an enormous chunk of cheese in the stern—the captain ate his straight from the point of a sword, just as the ancient Vikings ate the flesh of a freshly killed bear. For some reason the wind has died, and squall clouds are once again hanging directly ahead—apparently, a calm night without rain or gusts was a rare bonus from the elements, and that bonus has already expired. That rare night was magical. Nastya was so delighted that she settled down to sleep beneath the stars. And whenever the first mate woke, she admired the glittering vault of heaven through the wide-open hatch in the saloon. The batteries didn’t charge properly—the sails blocked the sun. We started the engine. And the evening ceased to be languid (. Our coordinates: 6°10′ N, 47°40′ W. 448 miles to our destination. We have covered 1,470 miles along the rhumb line; in reality, about 200 miles more.