From an Oil Spill to a Tropical Storm—One Day in the Life Aboard a Yacht, in Pictures :)

The day began with an oil spill and ended with the anticipation of a tropical storm.

Picture One: Anthropogenic “Beauty”

In the morning, during lessons in swimming underwater beneath the yacht’s keel, everyone noticed a fairly strong and decidedly persistent smell of fuel oil. As a precaution, the crew evacuated back aboard. Ten minutes later, the rainbow-hued source of the smell, the size of a football pitch, drifted up to the yacht:

Beautiful?—But very sad... and harmful

Using diluted Fairy washing-up liquid, kept specially (and exclusively) for this purpose, we managed to reduce the slick. The first mate spent half an hour on the bow cleaning the oil film from the ocean, trying to spray farther while using as little as possible. As with any medicine, it is important not to overdose on diluted Fairy. We managed to reduce the oil slick by almost two-thirds. The rest was beyond our reach from aboard (.

/This is where there should be words expressing the pain of what we humans are doing to nature.../

At the bottom of the picture, you can see the slick disappearing.

Picture Two: A Well-Earned Rest

There are moments aboard a yacht when complete Zen descends, along with the first mate’s immense joy.—After breakfast, I sent the family ashore and began playing the good mother for them:

The simple pleasures of anchor watch.

Picture Three:

Learning Is Light

The landing party returned from shore about an hour and a half earlier than anyone would have liked. Our senior young sailor’s English lesson on Skype fell through: the power had gone out at the internet café. And upon returning to the boat, a disappointed Nastya withdrew to the forward cabin to play the “good daughter and sister.” “He drew it on a sheet of paper and wrote a caption in the corner”:

The “no entry” sign is hanging on the door.

Picture Four: Everyone in Their Little Houses

During the crew’s brief absence, I managed to indulge in some peaceful reading over a cup of coffee, but I didn’t manage to complete the intellectual and industrious part of my “Home Alone” plan. So active little Lada was neutralised with a game of houses:

A house for the junior crew member.

Picture Five: Getting to the Bottom of It

Having redone a whole pile of housework “on her own,” the junior crew member settled down with some jigsaw puzzles:

She just dropped a puzzle piece... ).

Picture Six: What Will Put Our Minds at Ease

Meanwhile, the captain retreated to the aft cabin to request the weather forecast. For some reason, his “Marin, come here a moment” immediately put me on my guard. The pretty picture with concentric circles means that this time a tropical storm is expected to form not west of the Cape Verde Islands, as the textbooks say, but to the east, somewhere off the coast of Senegal.

So what will Cape Verde be in for by Wednesday?—And on Wednesday comes tooth decay:

We’re on the second little island from the left. The cyclone is moving from right to left

We wait and see, while considering moving into a marina for a couple of days. And hoping that nothing like what happened to us in Messina will happen again... 🙂 Warmth to you all!