Passage from French Guiana to the Caribbean, Days 4–5

Passage from French Guiana to the Caribbean, Days 4–5 Venezuela is abeam (directly off to the side). The weather is lovely: hot, with a swell, but almost no wind. We’re wallowing lazily, stuffed with tuna and mangoes. Yesterday we covered 50 miles in 24 hours; today, 72. It’s strange that we managed to catch a tuna at such a “breakneck” speed at all. When trolling, fish bite when the lure—and the boat it’s trailing behind—is moving. But if a plastic fish is dangling tail-down, only a truly stupid predator would mistake it for the real thing. And the plump little tuna on our plates was just such a gullible glutton. That’s why it got caught. Out of boredom, Nastya has gone to bake apples, while the first mate is dreaming of summer, a short dress, and Novosibirsk... though St Petersburg would do as well. Lada is reading the headings in the pilot books, while the captain has set his mind on catching more tuna to can as stew, using a recipe from our friend Captain Valentin Dundukov. Also out of boredom, we’ve begun compiling our diary entries about the family’s Atlantic crossing into a book. It will include a section written by the children. Today even Lada dictated some kind of surreal piece to Mum about us in the ocean. The wind is weak even for the gennaker (a huge, thin, bellied sail); yesterday it wrapped itself around the forestay several times, at the risk of tearing to the tune of 400 euros per second. We had to manoeuvre to unwind it. Nastya has mastered the helm and, for the first time, stood a night watch on her own. Not the whole watch, of course, but still. At last we took the guitar out of its case; no one had touched it since Cabo Verde. After playing music to our hearts’ content, we started dreaming. For New Year, Lada is going to ask Father Frost for chewing gum and nothing else. Nastya grumbles about all this pointless wallowing when the boat is rolling hard but making no headway. By way of consolation, the captain threatens to give her a birthday cruise aboard a snow-white beauty of a yacht among the Caribbean islands. The young sailor replies that it will be the worst day of her life, because what she dreams of doing on her birthday is “going somewhere cold and not cooking anything all day.” I’m cracking up: be careful what you wish for :). Sceptics, here’s a perfect opportunity for you to say nasty things about negligent parents and deprived little round-the-world sailors ;). But with wind like this, we really do risk not reaching land before her birthday (it’s on the 12th). So we’re even considering making a dash for Venezuela—we’ll definitely make it there. “We’d just have to get out of there very sharpish,” laughs the captain. About once a day, some ship or other looms on the horizon. We came across cable-laying vessels again, and they even hailed us on the radio, mistaking us for a fishing boat. They spoke good English and Spanish. We didn’t bother finding out who they belonged to; we said goodbye and rushed to dog down the hatches against a sudden squall of rain. Ocean passages have shown us that not every black cloud that suddenly rises out of nowhere like a fast-growing colossus promises a monstrous wave. More often than not, it’s an ordinary rain shower, night falling in broad daylight, and brief squalls. He-e-ey, everyone, please send us some wind—15–18 knots, on the broad reach. We’ve asked Poseidon, we’ve asked Zeus, we’ve called Prince Yelisey to our aid—but nope. They probably don’t understand Russian, and Yelisey didn’t hear us at all.... Thank you :). The beginning of the passage to the Caribbean and our departure from the river along the Suriname–Guiana border is here: Passage from French Guiana to the Caribbean. Days 1–3 The spectacularly stormy end of the passage, the threat of losing the mast, and a major breakdown are here: Passage from French Guiana to the Caribbean. Days 6–7