How We Became Native Americans — Fun Aboard the Yacht

Dawn over the “Great Lakes” 🙂 Why the Great Lakes? Because that was where real Native Americans lived. And they are what this story is about. A real Native American... Over the long weekend, while Perth was under a brief but strict lockdown, our friends came to see us off into the Southern Ocean for the eighth time :)). Morning light shone through the murky portholes of the aft cabin, and every minute I spent lying in bed began to fill me with a sense of the utter pointlessness of my existence. Tearing myself from the captain’s embrace, I bounded off to greet the dawn. Seryozha was already on watch. Then Yulia joined us, and we watched as a flock of cormorants, warmed by the sun’s rays, took wing. A couple of scouts made a final circuit and returned. The rest of the flock took another quarter of an hour to wake up. Then suddenly, as if at a gunshot, they all soared up at once and swept away over the water in pursuit of something interesting. They did not return until evening. Cormorants on their perches They took off And left ) After breakfast, we went ashore in two runs and set off on a hike along Dumont d’Urville’s trails. It took us a long time to get ready: we ate a substantial meal, packed a backpack and a half with food so we could eat on the hike, went back from shore for water because the young sailor had forgotten to fill the bottles, and headed towards a hill three kilometres from the pelican beach. (Read about another epic hike through the haunts of the cannibals of Fatu Hiva Island here >> ). From the hill, we continued along the trails and were rewarded with a magical view of the bay from a lookout. To lighten our kitbags, we ate all the food right there. Almost dawn The Native Americans have arrived. How? Along the way, Lada and Mila somehow ended up holding a folding knife and a stick at the same time, and the children suddenly felt the call of their ancestors—the real Native Americans. The direction of this call was influenced by Stanislav Govorukhin’s three-part film The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, which Lada had recently watched. During the screening, a pirate, a Native American and an adventurer awoke within our young sailor. And all this led to the main theme of the Klochkovs’ and Galushins’ three-day sailing trip: real Native Americans are nothing like palefaces. All the photos below were taken by the world’s best photographer, Yulia Galushina The tribe’s name was left to the children, armed with the theoretical foundations provided by the film Chingachgook, the Great Serpent. It must be said that the children gave the tribe a very silly name. I will not even write it here—the tribe shall remain secret. But thanks to circumstances and the children’s fertile imaginations, the names of the tribe members turned out to be very funny indeed. Meet the Native Americans of the... tribe! The tribe with the silly name, travelling across southern Australia in the palefaces’ pirogue: Chief — Vicious Piggy The chief’s squaw — Dead Flash Drive Warrior — Flattened Cockroach The warrior’s squaw — Witless Doe Young squaw — Uta-Ua Beautiful Eyebrows (in the later version—Uta-Ua Two Eyebrows) Council of New Elders (Young Elders): Roast Rooster and Gluttonous Vixen Can you guess who is who? 🙂 After the lookout, as befitted Native Americans, the tribe headed towards terrain criss-crossed by dunes. In our innocence, we had taken this clearing on Google Maps for a road. The dunes turned out to be a firebreak. For many moons, no moccasin had pressed into the sand of this trail. No arrow had whistled past a traveller’s ear. Hark! Near the end of the clearing, the tracks of large hooves appeared. How it all began Having correctly reasoned that such tracks could not have been left by Vicious Piggy and Flattened Cockroach (Yulia’s husband and mine), we identified them as the tracks of a mounted paleface ranger. The unknown rider had passed through no more than a day before us. When the sun had passed its zenith, a solid road appeared ahead. Under the canopy of trees unknown on other continents, the tribe walked single file towards the water’s edge. Testing the slingshots More Indiana Jones here )) In the wigwam aboard the pirogue The “Council of New Elders” returned aboard the pirogue armed with newly whittled slingshots, one arrow and a supply of pine nuts for shooting at the dinghy. The warriors grilled their catch on the yacht’s barbecue—chicken in barbecue sauce from Woolworths, and vegetables marinated by the squaws (squawmi? squawami?). To the ritual songs of Vysotsky, the party prepared for sleep. Given the security of the anchorage, no sentries were posted around the wigwams. Why would we need sentries with tribe members like these? Armed to the teeth—slingshots, arrows, knives and binoculars. What more could girls need to be happy? )) Seryozha, Yulia and Mila All the Native American photos and the photos featuring people were taken with the loving hands of Yulia Galushina 🙂 More adventures on the trails of the real Yaghan people here >>