Japan Is Gliding Past to Starboard. Day 50

Japan Is Gliding Past to Starboard. Day 50 The greatest joy for a long-haul sailor is sailing close to shore. No, friends, there is no romance in a weeks-long ocean passage. No adrenaline, either. There is only waiting for land, the monotony of daily life, loneliness, and even melancholy if you haven’t yet attained Zen. And the joy of admiring volcanoes and little Japanese islands cloaked in lush greenery caught up with us the day before yesterday, which we immediately reported on the Travely-Family Telegram channel. Follow us on Telegram, and then we won’t lose one another on social media. Probably. Who knows what they’ll ban or introduce while we’re asleep... The setting sun sinking into the haze over the ocean really is bright scarlet here, like the sun on the Japanese flag. And one of the peaks on the island of Kyushu looks exactly like the famous Mount Fuji. Some kind of trees are blooming yellow in the forests—looots of trees. The southern islands are completely covered with them. There are no cities, few buildings, and we saw two settlements on the island of Yakushima. Through the binoculars, we made out perfectly ordinary houses and buildings that could just as easily have been in Europe, Australia, Polynesia, or the Caribbean. Globalisation is erasing architectural differences, which is a shame... And in general, it’s hard to believe this is Japan. It really is. Where Can You Find the Greatest Freedom to Travel? Travelling on your own yacht is an amazing thing: no other mode of transport, including your own two feet, lets you approach foreign shores without a visa. Only a boat. We’re sailing through Japan’s territorial waters, gawping at the shores, even catching the scents drifting over from land. And we’re not breaking any rules. What’s more, if there’s a storm or a headwind, we can even drop anchor. The main thing is not to go ashore. Not a single passing ship or shore service takes any interest in you. And if they ask over the radio, we’ll answer and then carry on towards other shores. Even during strict Covid restrictions. Even during the thing that must not be named (at least for now)... What other form of travel gives you that kind of freedom? Time, Time! We need to reach the entrance to the Sea of Japan before they switch off the fresh breeze there. Vladivostok is still just under 700 miles away—a week’s travel if there’s wind. With an absence thereof (as there is now), it’s hard to predict when we’ll arrive. This morning we were crawling along at 3 miles per hour, and then we stopped. We started the engine, and now we’re “flying” again at 3 knots. Once again, someone has to steer every minute of every hour, sitting out on deck: the electric autopilot gave up the ghost halfway to Japan, and the windvane self-steering only works when we’re under sail. Dead ahead is the little island of Fukuejima (which is why we have internet: mobile data through Beeline, 450 roubles for 1 GB. Not cheap, is it? For comparison, here are Polynesian prices: 1 GB of mobile internet in Tahiti, with no roaming involved, cost 880 roubles before 24 February. Yep)... The Place Where the Sun Rises That is Japan’s literal name, not poetic imagery at all. It is how the two characters pronounced Nippon or Nihon (Japan, to us) are translated. Off our starboard beam is Nagasaki, the very city on which the States dropped a nuclear bomb, the one sung about in the song “The Girl from Nagasaki” and written about in Valentin Pikul’s novel The Three Ages of Okini-san. Have you read it? A foul current is slowing us down. There are countless currents along these shores, and so far we haven’t encountered a single favourable one. We plan to drink champagne as we pass through the Korea Strait. We’ve still got another twenty-four hours to slog before we reach it. For want of anything better, the last bottle of Orangina (sort of like Fanta) has been appointed to play the role of champagne. We’ll have chocolate and apples with it. On day 50 of the passage, we still have almost a whole crate of them—we stocked up splendidly in Polynesia. Soon the internet will drop out, the conical peaks will be left astern, and once again we’ll count the miles and hours until we’re home. Our mothers, friends, and a million urgent tasks needed to keep body and business afloat are waiting for us there. So we can’t stay in Australia, Polynesia, or Japan (as people sometimes suggest in the comments). Even if those countries rushed to welcome us. But they aren’t rushing. And they aren’t particularly keen on issuing visas, either. (Yes, yes, there are visa regimes in this world that mean you can’t simply stay in whichever country you choose.) The girls are belting out the song, “I’m going back to the Motherland, let them shout: ‘You ugly thing’...” And I’m remembering the line from Brother 2: “No, you don’t understand, boy. Vodka for us—we’re flying home.” And after that... we’ll figure it out when we get there. Peace to everyone. Lord, grant us peace and reason. Thank you to everyone who is with us—in spirit, with warmth, and in the comments! Our heartfelt thanks to Alexey G., Yuri N., and our entire shore support team—those who contribute to the ship’s kitty via htpps:// sobe.ru/na/travelyfamily To see our route in real time, and where Lady Mary is right now, hurry to the “Route” tab on our website. Here’s the link: https://travely-family.com/marshrut-krugosvetki/