From the Travely-Family archive · Cape Horn

A Tough Passage.

An original publication from the former Travely-Family website. This English translation was preserved from the technical-site archive without editorial rewriting.

A Tough Passage.

“Holy crap, those waves!” That’s the first thing I say today, while washing up. I shoot out of the heads like a cork from a bottle, the door slams shut an inch from my fingers, and I brake against the table—goooal!

.. The waves. The Captain has woken up after his night watch in the wheelhouse.

“Good morning, Marinochka! If it can even be called good...”

. That’s the second sentence of my morning.

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It’s getting harder and harder to radiate sunshine in the mornings. Still, at least dragging myself out from under the blanket gets easier every day—it isn’t as cold as it was for the previous six months. Kettle on the stove, tea bags into the thermos, biscuits and jam out of the cupboard and onto the wheelhouse settee. Wedge everything in quickly, before it goes flying. Don’t step on the sleeping young sailor’s little head under the table. Although the mattress from the cabin, where Ladunya has slept for almost a year, has more or less dried out, our inventive girl has asked to sleep under the table for now; she’s comfortable here. In fact, it’s definitely more convenient during the day, because there are now three of us sharing the wheelhouse settee, while Ladunya lies on her little mattress under the table and reads. We’re all together, and it’s hardly cramped at all.

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That’s it, kids. Once we reach Australia, I’m never taking a route like this again in my life. Just three more stretches this long, across the South Atlantic and the southern Indian Ocean, and that’s it, we’re done. Never again. Not for the life of me.

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On the night of September 16, we hove to, letting the oncoming storm pass over us. The very worst of it passed to the north; we only caught its tail. We lost one degree of latitude as we were carried south. We got winds of 35–45 knots and towering, multi-storey waves. I think they were only this big a couple of times off Cape Horn during our first rounding. The second time we encountered twelve-metre waves was earlier in this passage, when a severe storm in the Furious Fifties prevented Lady Mary from approaching the Falkland Islands. Subjectively, the Cape Horn–Cape of Good Hope leg is harder than the passage from the Society Islands to Cape Horn. Strong, variable, gusty winds, chaotic, enormous waves, and already two severe storms in twenty days, compared with one in sixty-two days in the South Pacific. Though that was quite a ride too.

On this tack, night after night, I’m the unlucky one: I’m the one who rolls onto my bedmate, and instead of sleeping, I spend all night bracing my limbs against the mattress and the bulkheads. Do you know how awful it is, morning after morning, to find a whiner in your bed instead of your active, determined self?

“Ah, well,” I say. “Normal people, by the age of forty-five, already want to settle down in a cosy nest...”

“Who, Konyukhov?” Andryukha is openly taking the piss.

“No, everyone else except us and Fyodor Filippovich,” I reply with a sour smile.

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Though, of course, there are more truly restless spirits out there. And at this very moment, someone else may also be thinking: “As if I’d ever come back to this arse-end of the world! Never again in my life! I’ll go home, plant flowers and carrots and things, and sit on the porch painting the beauty of the Altai Mountains. There’ll be a painted teapot with elephants on the table, the scent of thyme, and my beloved friends and neighbours will come to visit. Olya and I will sew something together; Nadenka and I will make grand plans for feathering the nest; and Natasha, Sveta and I will talk about the children’s achievements. And in the evening, we’ll go to the banya by the mountain river.” And I dive so deeply into it that when the next raging wave knocks me out of my reverie, I nearly cry.

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Why am I here? Why did we consciously leave the little world we had built so carefully? What did we give up comfort for?

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I remember a morning scented with coconut palm blossom seven or eight years ago. For the third month in a row, I wake up in a house on the beach, among the palms and Buddhist temples of Koh Samui. I run barefoot to swim while little Ladunka snores softly beside Nastya and Andrei, and the best mother-in-law in the world fries pancakes. Nothing is sweeter than those sounds and smells, nothing kinder than the azure sea, nothing hotter than the coming day. I squint into the sun while rinsing off with the hose, spraying a hibiscus bush and, while I’m at it, a loudmouthed gecko. Huge black-and-blue butterflies brush my morning with their wings. And I cram a mantra into my brain: “Hello, day of my dreams!”

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I look inside myself and feel the falseness of it. I persuade myself that this is basically maternity leave anyway, and that millions of people dream of staying home with their child just like this. And I honestly try to fill this time with additional meaning. I strain to understand what is missing here. And I cannot find the self who peers beyond the horizon, climbs her own personal Everest and pushes back the boundaries of her world. Because if you do not push them back, your world collapses to the size of a cosy paradise. Or a familiar hell, a quiet swamp—whatever you happened to build. That paradisiacal morning of mine had everything, but it held no growth.

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And whatever does not grow ages and spoils. And the more you have been given, the more acutely the pain of unrealised potential cuts. Move! Strive towards a great goal, expand the boundaries of your world. Your comfort zone grows wider, and you are ready to step up to the next level—one that is horribly frightening at first, then becomes familiar.

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That was how, after a difficult winter in the Mediterranean, we set out into the ocean, and then around the world. That was how, when choosing between the prospect of baking for four months inside an atoll and heading into high latitudes, we chose the latter. In our desire to push back the boundaries of what was Possible for us, we sailed down to the 37th parallel. After Cape Horn, we changed our direction of travel and set off around the Earth by this damned... difficult route.

What do we get in return? Despite these bloody waves and wind gusts that keep rounding the boat up, despite zero comfort and the long fatigue, you cannot reproach yourself. You cannot accuse yourself of turning down the chance to try on a great dream for size. And by expanding the boundaries of your world, you change the World for the better. Because someone else, looking at you, will find the courage to do what they have always feared. And breathe out happily: “Damn it, I did it!”

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There, I’ve calmed myself down by reminding myself of what matters most, and now it’s easier to breathe optimism into the crew. The young sailor and I are about to make semolina cake, with foreign cassava standing in for the semolina. We’ll remember the stuffed cabbage rolls from the day before yesterday and put them on tomorrow’s menu. Our young sailor is a responsible one: she writes an announcement for every tasty dish, so there’s no getting away with slacking off.

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Planet Ocean is still going full blast. Enormous long waves carry several foaming humps on their backs. Sometimes it seems as though the yacht is soaring among snowy peaks. The cheekiest breakers fly over the coachroof and knock the cookware right off the stove. I brace my feet and grab the laptop at every bounce. The children, having collected everything that went flying, are playing a card game. The Captain reads in snatches, but mostly monitors the instruments and makes steering corrections. The wind is whistling at the promised 30 knots, gusting to 40, and will not ease until tomorrow. Gull-like birds slice through the air just above the waves, or even sit amid the foam preening their feathers as though there were no swell at all. So we’ll endure it too.

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We’re carrying the genoa with four reefs in. Speed: 6–8 knots.

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The morning of September 18 brought an easing of the wind to 10–15 knots. At the time this report was sent, Lady Mary had covered 2,210 nautical miles from Punta Arenas, a city on the Strait of Magellan, along our winding track. Tristan da Cunha is 1,090 miles away on the direct course; it will be farther by our actual track.

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You can follow the expedition in real time on our website under the Route tab, where our Iridium track is displayed. The same map, with the track and details, is available at bit.ly/iridium360.

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Many thanks to Alexei V. for contributing to the expedition fund through Yasobe.ru/na/TravelyFamily. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has helped replenish the ship’s kitty via Paypal.Me/TravelyFamily as well. Friends, this is how you show us that what we do and write matters to you and interests you. And your support gives us wings!

Hugs to everyone from 40° south. Yours, Andrei, Marina, Nastya and Lada. We’re waiting for your greetings from the mainland in the comments. Thank you for them, guys. Your support means so much to us!