In Search of Captain Grant. The Expedition
If anyone thought we were a crazy family before, they’ll have even more reason to think so now. Make yourselves comfortable. Unfold the charts. A week ago, we radically changed our plans, and after that our circumnavigation finally—and quite seriously—acquired the status of an expedition.
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Exactly seven months before making this fateful decision—on 22 April of this year, to be precise—while on our way to Easter Island, we sent a report from aboard Lady Mary via satellite: “Latest News from Aboard. Passage to Easter Island, Day 6.” Find the post using the search box on the website: it was the precursor, and it explains a great deal.
Next: has everyone read Jules Verne’s novel In Search of the Castaways? Or at least seen a film adaptation? Of all the cinematic masterpieces on the subject, we recommend the 1985 film In Search of Captain Grant for family viewing. (It’s still not too late to watch it and read the book—it puts you in the right frame of mind.)
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Honestly? We don’t even know where to begin telling this story..
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Because we are going in search of Captain Grant. Or, more precisely, the place where the fictional hero whiled away his Robinson Crusoe years. This is Maria Theresa Island, which Jules Verne placed at 153 degrees west longitude and 37 degrees 11 minutes south latitude. We read in the book:
.. No vessel had ever come to the shores of this lonely island; no echo of anything happening in the world ever reached it. Only petrels alighted here to rest. On many charts, this rocky islet, washed by the waves of the Pacific Ocean, was not marked at all. If absolute isolation existed anywhere on the face of the earth, it was on this islet, abandoned in the ocean, far from every sea route..
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Seven months ago, we shelved the idea. Perhaps we weren’t ready to sail quite so far off the shipping lanes? But now, apparently, we are.. insert laughing emoticon here. And for a week now we’ve been heading south, with not a single vessel in sight across the empty ocean.
This island is not quite so straightforward when it comes to geography and cartography. Until the early 2000s, Maria Theresa Reef was marked on every geographical map. One such map hangs in our Gingerbread House; another like it, with the island on it, adorned the wall of my childhood bedroom 30 years ago. On the 2012 British Admiralty paper chart of the Pacific region and the 2010 New Zealand nautical chart on our iPad, Maria Theresa Reef is marked at 136°38′W, 36°51′S. So there you have the difference between this and, say, Sannikov Land: precise coordinates down to the minute appear not merely in Jules Verne, but on charts only a decade old.
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But the internet says that satellite imagery does not confirm the existence of land at those coordinates. And who has checked in person? Exactly: no one. But damn it, it would be fascinating to touch the legend! Just imagine making a detour of 5,000–6,000 nautical miles (10,000 kilometres) and seeing for ourselves.
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Who would venture out here? Exactly: no one. A wise man won’t climb a mountain. What is he, an idiot or something?..
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But that’s what we’re here for! This brings to mind a line from Indiana Jones:
He is mad! No, he is not mad. He is crazy! (He’s cracked! No, he’s not cracked. He’s crazy!)
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Here’s the plan. We head south to the 35th parallel, where we’ll have to deviate from our course several times, because there are a few more disputed reefs in those waters, also unconfirmed by satellite imagery. We’ll help the satellites out: discovering new land—or removing erroneously discovered land—from point to point. Then we set a course for the coordinates given by Jules Verne, and from the 153rd meridian follow the 37th parallel eastward to the 136th meridian and Maria Theresa Reef, as marked on the Admiralty charts. We add or erase points, take screenshots of the coordinates and shoot photographs and video of the area, and the number of blank spots on the map diminishes.
And then..
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That is where the second act of the Ballet de la Merlaison begins. It’s 2,000–3,000 miles to New Zealand and 3,500 miles to Patagonia. Which way do we go?
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And that, in a nutshell, is how our crew decided to while away the tropical cyclone season.
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Nastka said her parents are nuts. Do you think so too?
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We have almost escaped south from the danger zone, and we should not return to it before May. In the next report: how we managed to persuade our sailor and junior crew member to spend about 50 days at sea without stopping. And then, today’s adventure: what happens to yachts that call at a two-kilometre-wide islet to replenish their provisions—an islet not even described in the sailing directions.
At this very moment, we are crossing the Tropic of Capricorn. Our current coordinates are 153°W, 23°S.