29 May. We have been sailing to Tasmania for fifteen days. After a year of being stuck in one place, two weeks at sea feel very boring and endless. Today is the first day the sailing has been easy, because there is little rolling, and even the sun is warming our wheelhouse. How dependent we are on the sun! It is not just a source of good spirits, but also a chance to write. Because it is the only way to charge the laptop. In general, when you are sailing through the forties in almost-winter, without an engine or heater and with almost no electricity, you feel like a seafarer from the past. AIS is switched off; only the GPS is running. Throughout the previous two weeks of the passage, I was frightened by thoughts of the distance we still have to cover before the end of this year. There is hardly any time left to explore eastern Australia or Tasmania. New Zealand is passing us by, and we are passing it by. Because even if a miracle happens and we get there, we will not be able to stay for more than two weeks. We will have to make it through the dangerous latitudes of the Pacific before cyclone season and reach Tahiti by the captain’s birthday. A three-month non-stop passage is likely, half of it in winter in the Roaring Forties. Nastya wisely says: “We’ll think about that tomorrow.” And I let the thought go.
30 May 2021. Like the trade winds
From the previous reports, you will have gathered that the Southern Ocean is not proving particularly easy after a year at anchor. Thank God an anticyclone has arrived, and for the second day we are sailing in easy mode, almost as though we were crossing the Atlantic in the trade winds.
“If only it were always like this—what bliss!” Nastya sighs dreamily.
“Uh-huh,” I say, wrapping apple filling in dough.
This is the second day we have baked little pies. Doing that during the previous two weeks was simply impossible. And tomorrow another storm is forecast. We hope we can shelter behind the southern tip of Tasmania before it arrives. Getting yeast dough to rise when it is no warmer than +16°C aboard is no easy task. I advised my daughter to secure the bowl of dough over a saucepan of hot water. She overheated the water, and we ended up with a crust at the bottom of the dough. We made little pies from the top part, then spread jam over the bottom and fried it. The pies, code-named “woeful onions,” did not rise at all; apparently the yeast had reached the end of its useful life.
Overall, for the past three days we have been sailing like proper circumnavigators. The only difference is the temperature outside and inside. Today is a warm day: at 4 p.m. it is +12°C outside and, for now, +17°C in the wheelhouse. At night it is usually 9–10°C outside and 11–13°C inside. When it is 13°C in the morning, it feels positively warm. It gets dark just after five and light after seven. We moved the clocks two hours forward and now live on Krasnoyarsk and Sydney time.
Delighted by the calm, steady weather, the young sailor and I set about sewing a dress for her doll. I am working tirelessly on the book whenever the sun lets us charge the laptop even a little. Over the past few days we have even been switching off the indispensable radar detector, never mind the radar itself. Otherwise, the batteries die. We have not seen a single ship in 15 days, but as we approach land the situation will change, and we will have to keep a very careful lookout at night.
Nastya is solving algebraic expressions. When she arrives in Russia, she has to sit the Unified State Exam; it was not possible to do it any earlier. Ladunya can hardly wait for us to be connected on 1 June so that she can return to her beloved Geographical School of the Holy and All-Praised Apostle Andrew the First-Called for the “Active Holidays” programme. Last summer they met online two or three times a week and continued their interesting classes with classmates and teachers. For my part, I am delighted that studying at our online school gives our young sailor pleasure. Not everyone can say that, can they? During this passage, we received three enquiries from you through the website about our young sailor’s school, timetable and curriculum. We cannot reply personally at the moment, but once we reach the mainland, we will publish a post about it. Meanwhile, once we arrive, Lada still has to complete her fourth-grade assessment and move up to fifth grade. Our young sailor has grown so big.
We have just ticked off all but the final 100 miles to the waypoint on our route. After that waypoint, we still have another 70 miles to the anchorage. That really is nothing. The main thing is to make it before the storm.
Friends, thank you for being with us! Thank you for helping replenish the expedition’s shipboard funds via
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Thank you to Alexey R. from Severomorsk and Vladimir E. from Krasnoyarsk. Through your support, we feel the importance and value of what we are doing. We look forward to your letters and comments. Our track and current updates are still available under the
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tab, courtesy of our hardworking Iridium-360 tracker from MVS Telecom. Coordinates: 4341 S 14413 E