Yesterday the Ocean treated me with good weather. The words “good weather” are not applicable, really, to these high latitudes, but the wind dropped to 10 knots, the wave height was about 3 meters, the sun peeped through the clouds and I was finally able to put the boat in order. Calibrated the new wind indicator. The last time I installed it, it showed incorrect values, gave an error in the direction of the wind.
I also conducted an audit of food and gas cylinders. I still have food for about 50 days and gas for than 80 days! Yes, I used up very little gas, because instead of using one cylinder a week, I had periods when I did not change gas cylinder for a fortnight. Stormy weather does not allow frequent use of the stove, sometimes I did not prepare hot food for 3-4 days in a row, hence all these savings were due to stormy weather. Yesterday, however, I indulged myself. At night, the Ocean calmed down, the sky cleared, the Milky Way was visible from horizon to horizon. The air was clean, crispy. I threw a phosphorescent lure to attract a squid and caught one. Cooked it at dawn. This was my first squid caught in March.
Through the satellite communication system Bysky, I received 1,240 messages in the last few days. Only now I was able to read them. Thank you very much for your kind words and your prayers.
There were messages with questions, why am I doing this and what do I want to prove? What I want to prove, I will tell you, when with God’s help I complete this voyage.
Why am I doing this? I’ll ask you a question. I do not understand – how you can be indifferent to what is happening in the world!?
James Cameron, an American, in 2012 descended into the Mariana Trench. I have a question – why not a Russian researcher? Moreover, it was the Soviet research vessel “Vityaz” in 1957 that for the first time measured the depth of the Mariana Trench and recorded a depth of 11,022 meters.
In 2005, a pilot from India, Vijaypat Singhania, ascended to the height of 21-kilometer in a hot-air balloon. I have a question – why do not we set ourselves such a task? Why is it important for India, but not for Russia?
An Englishman, Olly Hicks, has been trying to go around the world via the Cape Horn in a rowboat for several years, he failed with the first attempt and is preparing for his second try.
Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, both from Switzerland, built the Solar Impulse 2 aircraft and flew around the world on the energy of the sun, making 17 stops. Now the task is to fly around the world in a non-stop mode, and we have been working on this task for several years in the framework of the “Albatross” project.
I never ask this question – “what for”? I always ask another question – why do we stand aside, and why do we think that such projects are not important? They tell me: times are tough now. My dears, the times will always be difficult, but we live here and now. Yuri Gagarin made his space flight just 16 years after the end of World War II. Were they easy times then? Soviet pilots made a nonstop flight across the North Pole to Canada in 1937 – times were very tough then. The times are wonderful now, there are all possibilities for the realization of any ideas in art, travel, scientific discoveries. Who restricts or forbids us from realising our full potentials?
In Russia, there is still no mountaineer who has completed the program of climbing all 14 eight thousand metre mountain peaks.
The first person to set foot on top of each of the 14 eight thousand metre mountain peaks was an Italian called Reinhold Messner, who achieved it back in the eighties.
Until now, not a single Russian yachtsman has completed the entire route of the single-handed (solo) non-stop yacht race around the world without assistance “Vendee Globe”, I don’t even say to win it, just to last the entire distance. I tried it in the year 2000 but had to abandon the race off the coast of Australia when I was forced to make a call to Sydney due to technical issues on board. Since then, Russia has not even applied for participation. Why is that? The race takes place every four years.
It is a pity that modern humans live for 70 years, under the best of circumstances for 80 years, and not as the Old Testament people for 800-900 years. If only we had lived for 900 years, how much could have been achieved!
I like it when I receive letters from schoolchildren in which they write that they are dreaming of becoming researchers or designers of spacecraft, submarines, and airoplanes. I feel that a generation is growing up that does not ask the question “what for?”, but already at an early age, they are concerned about other questions, such as – what will I be in this life, what will I achieve, what mark will I leave? A new generation will soon replace the generation of hesitant and indecisive.
The wind turned to a headwind, which always happens after good weather. For about 10 hours it will push the boat to the south-west and then it should turn back to a tailwind. We must endure. Some good news: a lot of round numbers: I have crossed 100 degrees west longitude; covered the distance of 9,000 kilometres from New Zealand (exactly 5,000 nautical miles); it is 2,000 kilometres (1,111 nautical miles) to Cape Horn. Soon, it will be a thousand miles to Cape Horn. My dream is to step on a firm land on the eve of the Holy Easter Holiday.
Regards to all.
52’04 south
99’40 west