We’re Off to Cross the Pacific Ocean

A year and a half, guys... Nowhere in the world, apart from our homeland, have we lived as long as we have in Australia. A whole little lifetime, almost settled, yet lived out of suitcases. In a matter of minutes, the Australian chapter of our lives will melt away astern. Our friends will remain in our hearts—and we already miss them. We had a wonderful time travelling by sea and overland around Western Australia and Tasmania, but flew right past the east of the continent because-you-know-why. The photo shows a map of our travels, both with friends and without them. It is based on the Iridium-30 map from the Route tab, with our tracks around Tasmania added. For some reason, we simply didn’t take the tracker with us on short road trips. Australia and Tasmania Hugs to all of you. Wish us luck on this longest and most unpredictable passage. Honestly? For several days now, my chest has been tight with sadness. And our young sailor even had a little cry... We’re weighing anchor. ATTENTION! ✅ We won’t have our usual internet connection for several months. Satellite only—Inmarsat and Iridium. During that time, we will cover around 6,500 nautical miles, passing south of New Zealand without calling there. We will descend into the “Furious Fifties” and then climb back up to the equator. After that, we will head south again to Tahiti, where we will cross our own track, bringing the First Russian Sailing Expedition Around the World via the Great Capes and Antarctica with Children to an end. That will be in about two or three months. Then we’ll spend about as long again under sail, plus however long it takes by plane—and at last the road will lead us home. The difficulty is that we don’t know which way to go home. We’ll make that decision off Tahiti. Every Pacific country along our route is closed. Our only hope is to make brief stops at sparsely inhabited atolls to replenish our coconut supplies. Just imagine how interesting that will be! ✅ Follow our Pacific Ocean adventures on our website Make a note of it and share it with your friends. Chronicles of the passage will fly from our boat via satellite straight here. The website has a tab called “Route” . And this is really exciting: in real time, our brave Iridium-360 satellite tracker will send our position there, and you can always zoom in on the map and see our dot in the boundless ocean. kitties ✅ Over this period, several videos will be released on our YouTube channel, youtube.com/c/travelyfamily. We uploaded and scheduled them overnight. Leave comments and subscribe to our channel. Time to go. Our first storm comes on Tuesday. We’re very anxious. Goodbye, Australia. Friends, thank you for being with us! Hugs. Yours, Andrey, Marina, Nastya and Ladunka. And the photo shows Tasmania.