The Adventures of Brave Parcels at the End of the World :)

The Adventures of Brave Parcels at the End of the World :). The most precious things when sailing around the world and far from home. How parcels reach us out on the ocean, how ours reach our loved ones, and who delivers them. Sharya – Novosibirsk – Zlatoust. Jam and mittens Hooray! A parcel from Grandma! ...My sister and I wait patiently while Mum cuts open the canvas sack or Dad pulls the nails from the lid of the crate... Inside there might be chocolate, a little dress, or small bananas tucked into felt boots (in Zlatoust, bananas were “released” onto shop counters a couple of times a year; in the capital of Siberia, more often). We would slice off a sliver of the soapy-tasting banana and suck it like a boiled sweet. Jam and downy socks and mittens flew in from the Kostroma Region. Pine cones and pretty little things came from Novosibirsk. We were lucky: one grandmother lived in a village, while the other was a fashionable city lady. So the range of presents sent thrills coursing through every level of childhood happiness. And if the parcel crate was made of plywood, I got little boards for pyrography. Those ships are still hanging in the old dacha. When I was studying in Novosibirsk and living almost hand to mouth, a parcel from home meant something tasty from Mum and a few clothes bought with nearly the last of the money. Then the era of shortages passed, and parcels, like handwritten letters, began flying around the country less often. Yet they, not an email or a card transfer with the message “buy yourself something from me,” are what carry the energy of loving hands. . New adventures of parcels From Antarctica to Siberia From every anchorage, we send postcards to loved ones or active readers. Not all of them arrive, but we keep writing. This year, we had two opportunities to send something tangible home—from Tierra del Fuego and from Antarctica. We put the packages together just before they were due to leave; there was no time to go shopping. Postcards, penguin magnets and an almost handmade guest book for our Gingerbread House flew home from the world’s southernmost city. The package also contained a flash drive with a video filmed for the InternetUrok educational platform—the horrifying truth (as our young sailor puts it) about how our travelling frogs study :)). Stas from the Rusarc Aurora crew has already delivered this parcel to Moscow. All that remains is to forward it to Siberia. At Bellingshausen Station in Antarctica, Valery Vladimirov, a professor from Krasnoyarsk (and apparently the man in charge of installing Roscosmos antennas this season), gave our young sailor a jar of pine nuts in honey. “I can take a little parcel for you. I’m often in Novosibirsk,” Valery Mikhailovich offered. And we dashed headlong to the souvenir shop and the writing desk. Bellingshausen Station and the antenna Siberia – Panama. Letters and sweets In the three years since we crossed into the Atlantic, only two parcels have managed to find us—one from Siberia and one from Colombia. Almost two years ago, at Marina Hemingway in Cuba, we met the crew of the sailing yacht Celebrity, originally from Novosibirsk. Yulia and Michel’s catamaran was also in the marina, and Yulia turned out to be from Siberia too. In our excitement, we celebrated May Day on three boats in succession... Almost a year later, Styopa, Celebrity’s super-cook, flew out to the yacht straight from Novosibirsk. Admittedly, he was flying to Colombia, but for our sake the guys came to Panama too. For a long time afterwards, we reread the letters from friends and family, smiling and jumping up and down. We keep all the notes in a sacred place, while the New Year sweets were rationed one at a time until June. Styopa also took our greetings back to Novosibirsk in an African calabash, painted personally by the first mate. Bogotá – Panama City. Books and chocolate We received our second parcel from our guardian angels, Elena Stepanovna and Alexander Pavlovich, in Bogotá. It was delivered to Panama by a colleague of theirs from the Russian North. Inside were delicious chocolate bars with collectible stickers and books in Russian: maths workbooks for Lada from her friend Lyova and his grandmother, plus an entertaining Spanish textbook and a history of Native Americans. Now, a year later, they (not the Native Americans, but our friends from Colombia) were unable to come to Tierra del Fuego and want to send us a parcel. But we do not dare entrust it to the local post—it is slow, expensive and not especially effective, and somehow no one travelling directly from Bogotá to Ushuaia, Puerto Williams or Punta Arenas can be found... Wandering around the island The third parcel is wandering around the Pacific Ocean. ... November 2018. Subscribers to our blog, Vasya and Masha, live 30 km from the Gingerbread House in the Altai Mountains and are flying to New Zealand via Novosibirsk. “Would you like us to bring you a parcel?” And our mums arranged everything in three days. The couple and their three little ones spent about three months in New Zealand. We were also trying to get there before the tropical cyclones of the South Pacific. After all, how wonderful to meet people from back home in person! But when we realised we would not manage to slip through ahead of the cyclones, we turned towards Cape Horn. The parcel was redirected to Volodya Apukov, formerly of Novosibirsk and now a New Zealander. So the books and sweets from our mums and my sister are waiting for us somewhere in Auckland. And they will be lying there for about a year :). A map of our completed and proposed routes. Completed—the solid line. Proposed—dashed lines in two colours, matching the number of options :). Paper books for the children in Russian and our Soviet sweets, which no one anywhere else in the world has managed to make better, are the hardest things to find and the most eagerly desired on a long voyage. And so we come to the story of the fourth parcel, which arrived aboard Lady Mary after our return from Antarctica. The Fourth Height “From here, it is hard to imagine that somewhere far to the south are Antarctica’s glaciers and icebergs, penguins and mesmerising harshness, and that right now you are there and planning to go even farther south...” Thus begins a letter written on sheets of squared paper. Greetings from faraway St Petersburg, flown halfway around the world. Has this ever happened to you: you pick up an object and realise it comes from someone’s secret and cherished archive, just like the one you had as a child? That a boy on the Gulf of Finland was captivated by the same books as you, a landlocked resident of the centre of a vast country. That he too dreamed of a real naval dirk, and saw the shadows of the same heroic pioneers in the surf. And that, out of millions of dreaming children, he became one of those few thousand adults who never turned away from the path to the sea. Just like you. ...I have just made all of that up myself, but for some reason I am certain I have hit the mark. This is Dmitry Samoilov, representing Jonacor Marine—an international yachting agency and the official distributor of the yacht-building company Hallberg-Rassy and many other well-known brands. He wrote to us through our website during our passage from the middle of the Pacific to Cape Horn. And at once there was a sense of being part of the same thing, almost a friendship—to hell with the enormous distances! In one of his next letters, Dmitry mentioned in passing: “I want to send you a parcel. Tell me, do you perhaps need sails? ...Maybe I can interest some sponsors...” Oh, how we need sails. The genoa, repaired six times on the way to Cape Horn and after rounding it, is on its last legs. We try not to use it unless we have to. The small jib had bravely taken the full strain of our passages in difficult conditions, but on the way back from Antarctica, it too gave out. The sponsored sails have not worked out so far, and Dmitry asked what instruments we had installed. When we sent him their names, he remarked that they deserved a place in a naval history museum :). Instead of going to a museum, we and our instruments went to Antarctica. . Meanwhile... While the crew were out walking with penguins, Dmitry discovered that Daniil Gavrilov’s yacht, Rusarc Aurora, would be returning in early March from its final Antarctic voyage of the season. And they needed someone to help deliver the boat to Greenland. Acting on Dmitry’s tip, Vitaly had been preparing to join Aurora, but it was Andrey who flew out, armed to the teeth with presents for our crew. In Moscow, he met up with our shore team, and the gift bag was supplemented with e-readers, Nastya’s pre-e-ecious—a brand-new Samsung phone (now the best phone we have aboard)—and Russian sweets. Together with a whole box of Osoby chocolate from Dmitry, they make up Lady Mary’s golden reserve of sweets. We lovingly sort through the presents and read the letter. Our young sailor is now the proud owner of a splendid dagger in a sheath and a tiny, genuine Swedish billycan (she loves cooking). Rare books about round-the-world voyages and discoveries, along with the novel Pollyanna, have joined the yacht’s library. And since first thing this morning, the captain has been installing Raymarine displays in place of our obsolete museum pieces. Now we can sail by instruments. Lady Mary also has a spare bilge pump, while the crew have a strong homemade herbal tincture to put some pep in us. And I find myself thinking: we are ready for action—perhaps we should go back to Antarctica? 🙂 I always feel rather awkward receiving gifts from people I have never met in real life. And moved to tears at the same time. Dmitry, thank you for believing in our expedition, for being inspired and inspiring us, for keeping your finger on the pulse and helping us do something no Russian family crew has ever done before! It is a shame that we did not meet the courier, Andrey Simonenkov, in person. Aurora headed north a week before our return from Antarctica. The parcel was handed over to us by Roxana, the owner of the yacht club, who loves Russian sailors who make it all the way to Tierra del Fuego. We thank Vitaly and wish him and Aurora a safe passage from the very south to the very north of the Atlantic. Here, Aurora’s guests are still setting off for Antarctica Thank you! Thank you, Universe, for giving us the chance to undertake such an epic voyage and for bringing us together with warm-hearted people! Thank you to all our friends and acquaintances, and to those we have never met, who believe in us! Thank you, our dear commenters, for the boost of optimism and faith in our success that comes through in your warm words! We value every one of you and know most of you by name :). We would especially like to express our immense gratitude to our fellow expedition conspirators :). What else can you call people who contribute to the expedition budget through paypal.me/TravelyFamily ? Thank you to Alexander T., Vladimir T. and Olga K. from Moscow! You are the best motivators in the world! Our young sailor and her very own edged weapon The captain screws the first two instruments into place