Day 137

It is night here, and there is a light drizzle.  The ocean’s noise has taken on a different form, not like all those days past.  You can feel the current.  I can sense the boat being funnelled into the Drake Passage.  The wind has also changed and become favourable.

I am holding a course for the Diego Ramirez Islands.

These islands are harbingers to Cape Horn, lying at 55 miles to the South-West of the Cape.  It is the most Southern point of Chile and South America.  This is the waypoint for my entry into the Drake Passage.

It is 550 miles to the Diego Ramirez Islands.

Pictured: the group of islands known as the Diego Ramirez Islands.

The coming week is very important.  I need to get to 54 degrees South, and by the beginning of May, the Tierra Del Fuego Archipelago must be North of me.

Orthodox Christians are observing the final week of lent – Holy Week.  I thought that by Easter I would have completed my journey and be celebrating this bright holiday in a Church by the sea, surrounded by friends and family, but the ocean has decided to keep me here longer.

You have been asking me in your correspondences about the temptations one faces out here in the ocean.  Of course, there are temptations, but they are much fewer than on land.  There is no television and no radio.  I haven’t seen a person for 137 days, so idle gossip can easily be avoided.

And the fast.  In the ocean fasting is easy.  All it takes is for a storm to come, and that’s 3-4 days of xerophagy.  When you are lying fastened by safety belts and every 30 seconds you are hefted atop an 8-metre tall wave awaiting a capsize, you have time to think about how you have lived the first 67 years of your life.  They say that the ocean washes away your sins, but I think differently.  The ocean washes away everything superficial; a whole layer of spiritual insensibility.  You begin to remember things you did in your distant youth, which, in your regular life in the city – where we assimilate information in a constant flow – you would have had no chance of remembering.  The longer the ocean spends washing you with its storms, waves, and rain, the more sensitive you become to the past events in your life.  Maybe this is why it has taken me so long to reach Cape Horn.

Regards to all,

52.23 South, 82.35 West