Day 141

The first group of the project team has arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  The group is comprised of 6 people: Oskar Konyukhov, Arkady Konyukhov (grandson of Fyodor Konyukhov), and experienced travellers and yachtsmen: Semyon Deyak, Petr Isachenko, Mikhail Tarasov, Pavel Bogachev.

Today, the team meets with the Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Argentina.

On Sunday evening, the group flies to Ushuaia, to the port, where the expedition headquarters will be based and from where three yachts will sail to the ocean to meet Fyodor Konyukhov.

A message from Fedor:

“I’m crossing the 80 degrees west longitude.  This is the most crucial moment.  The culmination.  The coast is near, but it is a dangerous coast, there are no safe harbours and calm shelters.  All safe ports are located behind Cape Horn, to the east of it.  Ports of Puerto Williams (Chile) and Ushuaia (Argentina).

I often remember our compatriot Evgeny Smurgis from the city of Lipetsk, rowed for more than 40 thousand kilometres along all the great rivers of Russia, and across the north of our country and rowed all the way to London through Barents and the North Seas!  This was in the 90s.  His dream was to cross the Atlantic Ocean.  In the fall of 1993, he left England on a course to Cadiz (Portugal), but got into a storm off the coast of France and perished in the Bay of Biscay.  His last row took place in late autumn, in November.  It is also autumn now in the Southern Ocean.

Many times I watched a video of the arrival of the British rower Jim Shekhdar to the shores of Australia.  In 2001, he rowed across the Pacific from Peru to Australia in 273 days.  He finished on the Australian island of North Stradbroke and his landing was not perfect.

Jim was thrown out of his boat into the water and then onto a sandy beach, but the water temperature near the cities of Brisbane and Gold Coast is much warmer than the temperature in the Drake Passage.

Crossing an ocean in a rowing boat is a big event, but to complete the crossing and land safely will require all the strength and concentration.

I thank God and my parents for my good health due to which I was able to hold out for 141 days in the Southern Ocean.  Here, just living on a boat for a week is a test of all your abilities.  I hope the boat and the equipment will withstand as well, and I will be able to enter the Drake Passage, and after I cross the longitude of Cape Horn I shall rely entirely on my team’s ability to meet me and tow me to safety.

53’40 south and 80’07 west

Cape Horn is 470 miles away