It’s been a long time since we saw the weather change quite so dramatically, with the wind swinging through 180 degrees in half an hour. One minute it was sunny and as calm as paradise, the captain was repairing the engine cooling-system pump, and the young sailor was making soup. And an hour later, we were already in a Force 9 storm. +16°C abruptly turned into +9°C; the storm swept in from Antarctica exactly when it was expected. For some reason, the previous day’s forecast hadn’t matched what actually happened. Yesterday a powerful squall came through, gusting up to 40 knots, while the forecast showed a placid, boring 15–20 knots. Against that backdrop, we had begun to doubt today’s forecast as well. But it all came true. It’s supposed to ease to 30 knots by nightfall. The captain and second mate are bounding around the deck clipped on; the staysail is already reefed, but even under that scrap of sail we’re flying along at 7 knots, slicing through the whitecaps. The waves are coming from opposite directions because of the sudden wind shift. Lady Mary is galloping flat out, and the young sailor is worried that the pot of soup she has just made will fly off the stove.
The wind is 40–47 knots, and while I’m loafing around down here, writing this breaking news hot off the press and trying to save the captain’s bowl of soup (fail, because I ate the soup after all), our brave sailors have already struck the staysail and are setting the mizzen so we can heave to. Something is proving difficult. Of course I’m worried that my child is out on deck in a storm while I’m sitting here in the warmth. But what can you do? She’s the certified skipper in our family, not me. So now she’s living up to that proud title. Before the storm, the captain spent half the day in the bilge, trying to work out why water had stopped flowing through the engine cooling system yesterday. It turned out that the impeller blades had broken off, and the pump itself was leaking water from the circuit. Good thing we managed to finish both the soup and the pump in time.
An hour later. We’re sitting in the wheelhouse. I’m writing, Lada is reading, Nastya is doing algebra. The captain is warming his frozen feet under a blanket and against a warm part of me. We really need to get the boots out; how long can we keep putting it off? The jokes are over. Hugs from the stormy Southern Ocean at 43 degrees south. Just over 500 miles to Tasmania. This letter has been cast into space from 4319 S 13439 E.