Day 77. The gale-force headwind continues.

Hello everyone, how is your work week going? My progress can be seen on the boat track on the map. The gale-force headwind continues to drive the “AKROS” rowboat in the opposite direction. I am already at a longitude, where I was on 17 February, 4 days ago, only 55 km to the south. The headwind will persist for another day, followed by a sharp change to the southerly and the wind speed will increase even further. Wind waves are currently from the northeast, and a gale will come from the south at 35 knots. Wind against the waves, it’s like stroking fur the wrong way. The ocean will rear dangerously for a day or more. Until the end of the week I will have to be in a survive mode and this is not a figure of speech. When the wind turns southerly, I will have to turn as well, so will complete a circular trajectory. I think it will amount to a 360 degrees turn for the week and I will find myself in the same coordinates where I was a week ago.

“Have you learned to rejoice in obstacles?” So says the inscription on a stone in the mountains of Tibet. I have not yet mastered this pleasure, but I have to humbly endure this storm that came from the east and observe on the map how the distance to Cape Horn increases. My team advises me that I need to stick it out for another day and the wind will change direction. A day will pass very quickly in a big city: you go from one end of town to the other by car and the day will be over. But when you sit or rather you are lying in a boat and you feel every blow to the hull with your whole body and react to every gust of wind – such a day seems like a week.

At dawn the sun flashed, it is unusual that it rose behind the stern, before that I met the sunrise looking ahead along the course, but today I had to look at sunrise over the stern.

The boat and I are stuck near point Nemo. We cannot go past the 125 degrees west. And the summer season in the Southern Hemisphere is nearing it end, time is running out, autumn storms will soon come. Now, after almost 80 days in the Southern Ocean, my advice to ocean rowers is that the Southern Ocean is not the right place for a rowing boat. We must go where the trade winds blow. When the wind and the waves are in one direction, it is a piece of cake. Trust me, I can compare.

Regards to you all.
Fedor Konyukhov
48’02 South
125’56 West